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

La localización del daño: etnografía, espacio, y confesión en el escenario transicional colombiano

“…Como se ha visto en otros contextos sociales, las diversas iniciativas de investigación preocupadas por los procesos de violencia, en donde se instauran comisiones de la verdad u otros procesos de investigación, son mecanismos de reconstrucción histórica que, en condiciones temporales y políticas específi cas, se encargan de la defi nición, recolección y producción de un "saber" institucionalmente legitimado sobre el pasado violento de una nación (Cole, 2007;Young, 2004). Este proceso implica, como se verá más adelante, una serie de mecanismos de clasifi cación y control ofi cial a través de la intervención estratégica de saberes altamente especializados.…”

Peacebuilding and lines of friction between imagined communities in Bosnia-Herzegovina and South Africa

“…The willingness to engage in discussions about pressing social topics may partly be viewed as a legacy of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which involved different levels of society and initiated a cross-societal debate about politics in their most traumatising form. This is not to romanticise the TRC as it has been subject to critiques questioning its lack of clarity of its findings, 84 its ambiguous use of the concept of reconciliation 85 its limits in terms of wider impact, 86 its inability to deliver reparations to most people adversely affected by apartheid policies 87 , as well as its tendencies to over-privilege white and previously powerful people. 88 Bosnian socio-political life presents itself as primarily horizontally stratified, which may produce more stability in the political system.…”

Public Hearings as Social Performance: Addressing the Courts, Restoring Citizenship

“…45 According to Cole, transitional justice results from "a convergence of the human rights movement and international law" (Cole 2007) and can be defined as a way to cope with the aftermath of systemic and large scale violations of human rights … to grapple with the ultimate failure of traditional jurisprudence on the face of contending demands for justice, reparation, acknowledgements, mourning, healing, reconciliation, and the promulgation of public memory; [while] its attendant notion of "restorative justice" … focuses on restoring humanity to both perpetrator and victim (Cole 2010). …”