‘Let Me Tell You’: Transitional Justice, Victimhood and Dealing with a Contested Past

Cheryl Lawther

doi:10.1177/0964663920974072

Abstract

This article explores the intersection between the politics and construction of victimhood in transitional societies and the use of truth recovery as a platform for the creation of hierarchies of truth. It explores how, in a context of contested victimhood and an unresolved past, the ‘political currency’ of victimhood may lead to the domination and embellishment of certain voices and narratives and the concurrent silencing of others. As this article will then demonstrate, when applied to the debate on truth recovery, the capturing of victims’ voice and agency can manifest in a damaging ‘truth as trumps’ dynamic and recourse to ‘whataboutery’ in which one call for truth or the recovery of truth as significant to one side of the community is countered by that of a more ‘significant’ or more ‘important’ truth on the part of the other. The paper argues for the inculcation of a culture political generosity in transitional contexts as a way to begin to ameliorate these challenges.

Highlights

Increasing academic and practitioner attention has been paid to highlighting the voice and agency of victims in transitional justice processes
While acknowledging the importance of hearing and acknowledging victims’ voices, in this part of the article I argue that in a context of contested victimhood and an unresolved past, the ‘political currency’ of victimhood may lead to the domination and embellishment of certain voices and narratives and the concurrent silencing of others
In line with the increased attention that is paid to victim voice and agency in transitional justice, this paper has sought to explore the intersection between the politics and construction of victimhood in transitional societies and the use of truth recovery as a platform for the creation of hierarchies of truth

Summary

Introduction

Increasing academic and practitioner attention has been paid to highlighting the voice and agency of victims in transitional justice processes. Keywords Agency, dealing with the past, politics of victimhood, transitional justice, truth recovery, voice, victims

Results

Conclusion