Transitional Justice

Owned by Darlene Edgar
May 27, 2024
2 min read

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.