The transnational movement for Truth, Justice and Reconciliation as an emotional (rule) regime?

Abstract

The text at first focuses on a recent human rights movement for Truth, Justice and Reconciliation (TJ&R) and the War against Impunity. It briefly presents power structures, values, events and mobilizations that have led to some key forms of its institutionalization, such as the Truth Commissions (TCs), International Crime Tribunals (ICTs) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. It then poses the question of the emotional regimes that have accompanied its emergence and institutionalization. It does so in a threefold manner: it asks what feeling rules have been proposed by the Western armchair critics of the West as appropriate for dealing with past/distant human suffering. It then focuses on the activists – the humanitarian and human rights movements active where the suffering takes place – to see what they propose as appropriate feeling rules. Finally, it reproduces some elements of a broader, transnational debate concerning TJ&R to tease out the feeling rules advocated for victims and perpetrators facing TCs, ICTs, and the ICC in The Hague. In conclusion, the text asks whether we can speak of a Western institutional and emotional regime growing out of the movement for TJ&R.