Commissioning the Past

Understanding South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Häftad, Engelska, 2002

Av Janet Cherry, John Daniel, Piers Pigou, Madeline Fullard, Lars Buur, Pamela Dube, Mtutuzeli Matshoba, Phil Bonner, Noor Nieftagodien, Hugo van der Merwe, Deborah Posel, Deborah Posel, Graeme Simpson

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South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission was the twenty-first of its kind. It was more ambitious in the scope of its enquiry, more transparent in the nature of its proceedings, and more highly charged, symbolically, than any that preceded it. Its public hearings of testimony from victims and perpetrators, drenched with emotion and drama, are what most people remember when they recall the TRC. Yet at the same time, there were parallel processes of documentation, data analysis, quasi-judicial shifting of evidence and writing up the results.This book engages more directly than any previous scholarship with the range of the TRC’s activities, with the kinds of truth it sought to construct, and with the various ways in which its “truths” were (necessarily) fractured, incomplete and selective. This is no shallow exercise in debunking. It yields penetrating and conceptually nuanced analyses. While many of the essays in Commissioning the Past are critical of the shortcomings of the Commission, they simultaneously demonstrate a deep awareness of the contradictory brief and difficult circumstances in which the TRC operated. The book takes academic understanding of the TRC onto a new plane.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2002-07-01
Mått152 x 229 x undefined mm
FormatHäftad
SpråkEngelska
FörlagWits University Press
ISBN9781868143580

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Deborah Posel is professor of Sociology at the University of Cape Town, based in the Institute for Humanities in Africa, of which she was the founding director. Graeme Simpson is a founder and former Executive Director of the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation.Janet Cherry is a South African activist and academic. She is currently Professor of Development Studies at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth. Her main areas of research are human rights, democratic participation, social and political history, gender and sustainable development John Daniel was an activist, Professor of Political Science and most recently served as Academic Director of the programme in Social and Political Transformation of the School for International Training, Durban. Piers Pigou is Crisis Group's senior consultant for Southern Africa. Madeline Fullard is Head of the Missing Persons Task Team at the South African National Prosecuting Authority. Lars Buur is based at the Department of Social Sciences and Business at Roskilde University. Pamela Sethunye Dube is Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Student Development and Support at the University of the Western Cape. Mtutuzeli Matshoba is an author, screenwriter and journalist. Phil Bonner was Professor of History at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, where he held the National Research Foundation (NRF) Chair in Local Histories and Present Realities. Noor Nieftagodien is the Deputy Chair of the History Workshop and is Senior Lecturer in the History Department at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Hugo van der Merwe is the Transitional Justice Programme Manager at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation Deborah Posel is a sociologist and Professor Emeritus at the University of Cape Town. She is the founding director of UCT's Institute for Humanities in Africa and the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research.