Producing the subjects of reconciliation: the making of Sierra Leoneans as victims and perpetrators of past human rights violations

Renner, Judith

doi:10.1080/01436597.2015.1047197

Cited by 11 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Technologies of power are often discursive, or manifest in discourse. Broadly speaking, a Foucauldian understanding of discourse, which Kurki's (2011) analysis follows, applied in a transitional justice setting described here, can help shed light on the ways in which specific ideas about, for instance, 'reconciliation' or 'transitional justice' become dominant forms of knowledge, and thus key framing narratives (Moon 2008;Renner 2015). Following Foucauldian ideas about governmentally and discourse, helps problematises 'reified' and 'naturalised' discourses (Selby 2007), inherent in projects of transitional justice, and its engagement with other local actors: these include the unproblematic assumptions that public deliberation is the key mode of confronting the past, and the assumption that NGO-led projects are an appropriate means of engaging with 'the local', and ultimately that 'reconciliation' should drive all transitional justice efforts.…”

Section: Bringing the Local Back In Through Disciplinary Rulementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Extending this logic further, Renner (2015:113) argues that globally, reconciliation politics are 'informed by a powerful discourse which shapes the global knowledge of what post-conflict reconciliation is and how it can be reached'. Renner (2015) notes further that this happens through discursive formation and signifiers which are positively correlated to 'reconciliation': "'truth commission'", "'truth-telling', 'healing', 'victims', 'perpetrators', and 'human rights violations''.…”

Section: Bringing the Local Back In Through Disciplinary Rulementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Yet, when a former prisoner of war expresses his frustration with the RECOM process, he is interrupted by an NGO practitioner who interjects to state her more advanced understanding of transitional justice. The former prisoner states that he has little faith in the functioning of the proposed commission, and in What this shows is that 'the local' project elite creates 'subjects of reconciliation' (Renner 2015) whilst positioning themselves as agents of reconciliation and empowerment. It is not possible to participate in the RECOM public consultations without subjecting oneself to one of the preconstructed categories.…”

Section: Experts and The Subjectification Of Othersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…I looked at how, for instance, the structure or programme of each event creates and reinforces hierarchies, and whether the event facilitators interrupt the participants giving testimonies. As the paper discusses, further below, I also looked at the roles that NGO facilitators assigned to themselves (experts) and participants (victims, and the 'subjects of reconciliation', Renner 2015) and what this suggests about power, government and conduct of 'the local'. The overall aim of the empirical section is not to 'uncover' the local or give voice to local actors but rather, to problematise the idea that local transitional justice initiatives are always inclusive and empowering.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Scholars have already discussed how discourses of 'reconciliation' or 'transitional justice' become dominant forms of knowledge, and thus key framing narratives (Moon 2008;Renner 2015). This paper extends these insights by discussing how such 'naturalised' and dominant forms of knowledge help produce other unproblematic assumptions: for instance, that experts and NGOs -the 'empowered' locals -are somehow uniquely positioned to help victims of war, and that their engagement with other locals is necessarily empowering.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Hidden politics of power and governmentality in transitional justice and peacebuilding: The problem of ‘bringing the local back in’

Obradović-Wochnik

2018

J Int Relat Dev

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and the two anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions on earlier drafts. A version of this paper was presented at the International Studies Association Conference in New Orleans, 2015. (2016:7) asks, 'what dictates the terms and characteristics of what or who needs to be emancipated, how and in what direction'? This paper challenges the view of 'the local' as emancipatory and as a locus of resistance towards the 'international' peacebuilders (Bargues Pedreny 2016), by suggesting that 'the local'particularly when it is expressed as the 'civil society of the Western imaginary' (Richmond 2011:117)-can also be a site of exclusion, governmentality and hidden power relations. We need to look critically at the local-empowerment dynamic because current debates obscure the processes by which empowered locals can become marginalising elites, and enact exclusionary practices. The paper thus investigates how NGOs-key actors in 'local' transitional justice projects and local actors with the 'good' kind of local agency (Randazzo 2016)-become complicit in governance of 'the local', by making decisions about which (other local) marginalised voices are heard, and under what conditions. The paper thus proposes that 'the local' peacebuilders should also be conceptualised as a governing agents: able to discipline and regulate other local actors' voices (victims, former combatants) and their agency, further entrenching existing inequalities, or creating new ones (Englund 2006:7). Such inequalities and power asymmetries amongst local actors in peacebuilding contexts, are reproduced through externally-funded projects (Sampson 1996): short term activities funded by external donors, often implemented by local, liberal NGOs, premised on ideas about 'local ownership', and circumscribed by their own logic and technologies of power (Kurki 2011). Projects and external donor funding are crucial mechanisms of bringing peacebuilding concepts to life, given that in post-conflict countries, human rights and transitional justice NGOs often have trouble accessing domestic funding for their initiatives. Projects are thus crucial for norm diffusion and translation of global visions of post-conflict justice, but they are not equally accessible by, or inclusive of, all local actors (Kurki 2011; Vogel 2016). Power, as I argue, is enacted locally through internationally-funded projects. Projects (re)produce power hierarchies, regulatory practices, disciplinary rules and subjectification: in a Foucauldian sense, projects are sites of power. Here, elite actors (NGOs), create subjects such as 'victims' (Renner 2015) and decide how they ought to behave in transitional justice contexts. Peacebuilding and transitional justice literature rarely examine how 'locals' with such asymmetric power and ability to command international attention, shape visions of what the local is. Hence, this paper takes a Foucauldian approach to power and builds on Kurki's (2011) work on governmentality, to open up a discussion of the subtler forms of power enacted by loc...

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Section: Bringing the Local Back In Through Disciplinary Rulementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Bringing the Local Back In Through Disciplinary Rulementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Experts and The Subjectification Of Othersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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