The Affects of Transitional Justice

Le résumé fourni par la source

Abstract Transitional justice projects are deeply embedded in Western understandings of law. As such, they are influenced by a specific idea in European modernity: that affects, emotions, feelings, and sentiments should be avoided in order to achieve justice. Certain strands of transitional justice scholarship have questioned this assumption and made a plea to take stock of the workings of emotions in transitional justice projects. These kinds of studies, which are reviewed in this chapter, typically engage in a profound critique of “legalism” in transitional justice, arguing that legal proceedings are not well equipped to accommodate peoples’ emotions. Such research on the affective life of transitional justice presents important insights to critically assess why transitional justice succeeds of fails. This scholarship should, however, not too readily take for granted the modernist narrative that Western law is, or at least should be, free of affect. Transitional justice research should instead develop a critical understanding how even the most legalist of proceedings is deeply embedded in affective dynamics, even if analysts might often not label them as such. This means not only investigating affect and transitional justice but also the affects of transitional justice.

Ce résumé expose les affirmations des auteurs. BNTIC ne l’interprète pas comme une validation indépendante des résultats.