Performance, Transitional Justice, and the Law: South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Abstract

The word "performance" is often on the lips of scholars who write about truth commissions and international human rights law, yet performance and theatre studies scholars have not yet been central interlocutors in this discourse. The author charts a point of entry by examining a unique and defining feature of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC): its public, embodied, and performed dimensions. How did the TRC's performative conventions, modes of address, and expressive embodiment shape the experience for both participants and spectators? The author argues that the "completeness" of the vision of the apartheid past that the TRC was mandated to achieve can be discerned as vividly—if not more so—through detailed analyses of moments of performed testimony as it can through the macro-narratives and quantitative analyses that have so far dominated scholarship on the commission.

Why punishment pleases: Punitive feelings in a world of hostile solidarity

“…Research on the ritualistic and ceremonial elements of punishment often focuses on the main stage where punishment and judgement are expressed, the criminal trial (Cole, 2007;Sontag, 1966). The precise moment of confrontation between offender and community is directly linked with many of the main emotional responses related to punishment, such as denunciation, censure and blaming, and has particular symbolic appeal due to its representation as a moment of resolution.…”

The Khmer Rouge Tribunal’s first reparation for gender-based crimes

“…And how does this production fit within a broader movement of using artistic forms, such as theatrical forms, as tools of transitional justice (e.g. Cole 2007;Rush and Simić 2014)? While this short reflection on the Pka Sla Krom Angkar dance does not seek to answer those larger questions, we hope that it does provide some food for thought.…”

‘Leaky’ Bodies, Connectivity and Embodied Transitional Justice

“…Writing about South Africa's truth and reconciliation commission (TRC) during the 1990s, for example, Cole describes how one witness -Nomande Calata -'broke into a loud wail during her testimony'. 95 This powerful sound, she argues, which transcended language, 'indicates the degree to which embodied expression was central to the TRC process…' 96 Similarly, in her work with women who testified at the Tokyo Women's Tribunal in December 2000, Yang remarks on 'the variety and richness (yet separateness) of verbal as well as nonverbal expressions in the testimony of former comfort women -facial and bodily expressions such as sighs and tears -as well as signs of alarm, thrill, and laughter'. 97 These examples underscore the importance of allowing and encouraging bodies to tell their own stories in a variety of different ways and forms, including through sounds, movement/dance, drama and mime.…”