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This article surveys the literature on participation in transitional justice (TJ) focusing primarily on victims and bottom-up actors. We argue that often the preoccupation in TJ has been with greater rather than more meaningful participation, and that there needs to be a concerted effort to focus on everyday actors, including their voices, needs and priorities. Consideration also needs to be given as to whether meaningful participation can occur without genuine obligation and commitment to heeding participants’ input, and greater consideration is required to measure and build an evidence-base regarding participatory TJ efforts and their outcomes. We advocate for further discussion in theory and in practice about how participation in TJ can be reimagined toward actor oriented, bottom-up led processes that lead to meaningful outcomes. We suggest that TJ specific participation considerations are required and refer to existing theoretical considerations and models from other disciplines and sectors as helpful departure points.

This article argues that transitional justice processes should strive to incorporate development considerations in their scope as a means of ensuring that distributive justice is achieved. Distributive injustices-social, political, economic or cultural rights violations-are often the root causes of conflict, but transitional justice processes often do not give sufficient attention to them. This has been the case in countries such as South Africa, Kenya, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Through an examination of truth commissions in Africa, the article argues that without adequate acknowledgement of the conceptual and practical synergies between transitional justice and development, transitional justice will have limited remedial utility as a means for contributing to sustainable peace. • Rectificatory justice or the restorative capacity of transitional justice: how human rights violations, crimes against humanity and war crimes are to be addressed; • Distributive justice, which aims to address the root causes of conflict, the underlying social, political, economic or cultural injustices, including the perceived or real injustices in the distribution of resources, opportunities and power (Addison 2009: 122).

Transitional justice (TJ) has developed in relative isolation from development discourse. However, in recent years, a growing number of academics, practitioners and policy makers have advocated for the adaptation of participatory methods from development studies to TJ. This article critically analyses the opportunities and challenges of implementing participation in TJ. I argue that participation can provide avenues for the voices of victims and other stakeholders to be heard, albeit not without significant challenges. I also argue that there should be increased focus to carry out participatory attempts where victims and affected community members are partners and decision makers; this just might be a starting point to ensure that TJ is indeed victim‐centric. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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