Performances of Injustice: The politics of truth, justice and reconciliation in Kenya
- Title
- Performances of Injustice: The politics of truth, justice and reconciliation in Kenya
- Speaker(s)
- Speaker: Gabrielle Lynch # University of Warwick
- Date and Time
- 6th Feb 2019 16:10 - 6th Feb 2019 17:30
- Location
- Seminar rooms 1 & 2, Chrystal Macmillan Building, George Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9LD
- URL
- http://www.cas.ed.ac.uk/events/seminar_series/2018_2019/performances_of_injustice_the_politics_of_truth,_justice_and_reconciliation_in_kenya
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 the ways in which unjust and violent pasts actually persist, and how they can actually reinforce, or enact further, injustice. Justice should instead be regarded as an ongoing political struggle that requires 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.
