Performances of Injustice: The Politics of Truth, Justice and Reconciliation in Kenya
Cambridge University Press, 8/30/2018
EAN 9781108444934, ISBN10: 1108444938
Paperback, 352 pages, 22.8 x 16.3 x 2 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
Following unprecedented violence in 2007/8, Kenya introduced two classic transitional justice mechanisms: a truth commission and international criminal proceedings. Both are widely believed to have failed, but why? And what do their performances say about contemporary Kenya; the ways in which violent pasts persist; and the shortcomings of transitional justice? Using the lens of performance, this book analyses how transitional justice efforts are incapable of dealing with how unjust and violent pasts actually persist. Gabrielle Lynch reveals the story of an ongoing political struggle requiring substantive socio-economic and political change that transitional justice mechanisms can theoretically recommend, and which they can sometimes help to initiate and inform, but which they cannot implement or create, and can sometimes unintentionally help to reinforce.
Part I. Haunted by Violence
Prologue. A time of violence
1. Confronting the past
transitional justice and the politics of time and performance
2. Framing the good citizen for orderly elections
the prioritisation of peace
3. Enter the International Criminal Court
performing (in) justice
Part II. A Post-South African Truth Commission
4. The Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation Commission
a sense of once-againness
5. Public hearings
bringing the audience back in
6. Truth's grand narrative (part I)
of injustice and suffering
7. 'It is because your tribe is women'
of the performance of familiar gender roles
8. Truth's grand narrative (part II)
of injustice and impunity
9. 'Only talking won't help:' of justice and reparations
Part III. Familiar Performances
10. Performed ruptures
Whither reconciliation.