Moving beyond binary identities in transitional justice: recognising the complexity of agency in agonistic spaces

Abstract

ABSTRACT Transitional justice (TJ) has historically struggled with understanding actors in their full complexity. Part of the underlying problem centres around the insistence within dominant TJ approaches on exclusive binary oppositions: agent vs. subject, victim vs. perpetrator, etc. These binaries make it difficult for groups experiencing marginalisation and oppression to also achieve recognition of their complexity. This paper offers an alternative conceptualisation of agency. Our argument is twofold: first, that focussing on relational autonomy rather than a liberal conception of agency offers a more holistic picture of the constraints and opportunities affecting agents’ actions in social networks; and second, that creating agonistic spaces, which centre around contestation and multiplicity, in turn fosters opportunities for an increased exercise and recognition of relational autonomy. Using interview data and archival analysis from Northern Ireland and Turkey, we demonstrate how these agonistic spaces can facilitate relational autonomy in a range of less traditional TJ arenas. In their embrace of multiplicity and rejection of a single truth, agonistic spaces are better equipped to recognise the ways in which actors can be both victims and perpetrators, marginalised and empowered. This approach offers a path for fostering new approaches to justice that move beyond a focus on punishment.