Transitional Justice as Liberal Narrative

Abstract

This chapter was written the summer before September 11th for an interdisciplinary art theory conference on transitional justice, which was part of the major contemporary art event Documenta 11. The setting was New Delhi, and part of the inspiration was Mahatma Gandhi, as well as forms of narrative associated with the contemporary art movement. In this chapter the author builds on the conclusions from her 2000 book, Transitional Justice. This chapter seeks to keep alive the appreciation of the complex normativity of transition; an even greater challenge today given the tendency to bureaucratize or legalize transitional justice, severing or attenuating its connection to the political. The chapter also deals with transitional justice’s relationship to the concepts of collective truth, impunity, the limited criminal sanction, and truthtelling.