Truth and reconciliation commissions: problems in transitional justice and the reconstruction of identity.
This article considers some of the main features of so-called truth and reconciliation commissions, their history and structure and their characteristic concerns with respect to their central dilemmas, including: how they grapple with notions of truth, justice, liability, reconciliation, apology and forgiveness, and how they address the need to support the "reconstruction" of selves and identities in the wake of massive trauma and collective violence. A particular concern is with how such commissions or related tribunals engender what can be called a "one-to-many" dynamic, in which they try to effect social reconciliation while focusing attention, via testimony and story-telling, on the traumas and suffering of individual victims.
Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University, 3330 Washington Blvd., Suite 500, Arlington, VA 22201, USA. kavruch@gmu.edu
Kevin
K
Avruch
D026683:Advisory Committees; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D019548:Crime Victims / Q000523:psychology; D006126:Group Processes; D006801:Humans; D017008:Negotiating; D011574:Psychoanalytic Theory; D012933:Social Identification; D012935:Social Justice; D012941:Social Responsibility; D014342:Truth Disclosure; D014754:Violence / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000523:psychology; D014858:War Crimes / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000523:psychology