Transitional Justice
- Darlene Edgar
Analytics
Lykes, M. B., & van der Merwe, H. (2019). Critical reflexivity and transitional justice praxis: Solidarity, accompaniment and intermediarity. International Journal of Transitional Justice, 0, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1093/ijtj/ijz023
Strengths and limitations of transitional justice paradigm:
Paradigm involves seeking truth, justice, repair, and non-repetition of human rights violations in diverse ways.
Growing number of scholars stress the importance of local knowledge from bottom-up or marginal perspectives.
Participation of communities contributes to knowledge and justice-seeking strategies for truth and repair.
Challenges include heteropatriarchal, neocolonial, racist norms within transitional justice processes that fail to address institutionalized systems and structures.
Critiques and challenges to transitional justice:
Call for transformative justice addressing extreme impoverishment, historical violence, and environmental injustices.
Feminist focus on sexual violence, women's multiple experiences of violence and resistance, and other issues like disappearances and migration.
Concerns raised about the universal human rights discourse potentially perpetuating recolonization.
Role of power and reflexivity in transitional justice:
Power shapes debates, knowledge presentation, and ownership within transitional justice discourse.
Scholars emphasize the need for critical reflexivity among activists, researchers, and advocates in engaging with transitional justice processes.
Critical reflexivity involves deconstructing intersecting sociopolitical and economic contexts and understanding one's own subjectivities in the process.
It facilitates a repositioning of oneself in transitional justice processes, emphasizing solidarity, accompaniment, and intermediarity.
Practices of critical reflexivity in transitional justice:
Pragmatic solidarity involves transnational accompaniment, addressing structural inequities, and completing tasks.
Mutual accompaniment focuses on transformations and dialogical processes between privileged and marginalized groups.
Intermediaries frame themselves as negotiators among different systems in transitional justice processes.
Critical reflexivity serves as a resource to understand power dynamics within relationships crafted by transitional justice processes.
Contributions to critical transitional justice processes:
Identifying missing or understudied aspects in transitional justice processes and engaging in critically reflexive practices.
Exploring the roles of diasporic actors, sexual and gender minorities, victims' organizations, business actors, and forgotten evidence in transitional justice.
Discussing unique challenges and practices in categorizing, preserving, and honoring artifacts from tribal and settler communities.
Critically analyzing transnational justice indicators and advocating for integrated approaches balancing policy choices and contextual realities.