Introduction

Abstract

This chapter studies how people talk about war crimes and advances the concept of reconciliation by stealth. Reconciliation through public engagement with former adversaries has been overlooked because scholars have focused on what people say when they discuss past wrongs. The chapter seeks to understand and explain how the pursuit of transitional justice can deliver on its normative goal of advancing peace by promoting reconciliation. The chapter employs the concept of reconciliation by stealth to explain the repair of interethnic relations. Anchoring the concept of reconciliation in mutuality, which refers to norms of civility and recognition in public communication, the chapter directs attention to features of discourse in transitional justice consultations involving former adversaries. It particularly looks at how people enact their ethnic identities in interethnic interactions and shows that reconciliation occurs through the combination of deliberative rationality and discursive solidarity. Ultimately, the chapter demonstrates that a sense of difference along the ethnic identity axis figures prominently despite evidence of a high quality of deliberation. It shows that people enact their ethnic identity in ways conducive to the emergence of solidary bonds across ethnic lines. These discursive identity practices offset divisive identity politics and make way for reconciliation during deliberation about war crimes.