Transitional Justice, Culture, and Society – Beyond Outreach

The book addresses a long-standing gap in transitional justice between institutional interventions and the need to recognize and support the mechanisms of human interaction-what happens between people and between communities and the structures established to maintain them. This unique collection of essays addresses the breadth of communicative mechanisms-from traditional media to new media and from art to film to photography to literature. The beautifully crafted chapters bring alive the multidimensional nature of social engagement and describe how these societal processes can maim and destroy as well as contribute to survival and healing. This collection is the first in the transitional justice literature to recognize the need to move beyond top-down 'outreach' programs to support two-way communication in its multiple forms and to recognize that societies rebuild by utilizing social, psychological, historical, and cultural pathways that strengthen their commitment to change. The strength of this book lies in its attention to multiple forms of creation and its appreciation of societal energies in responding to the past and addressing the future. -- Harvey M. Weinstein, Human Rights Center, University of California, Berkeley The contributors examine various forms of outreach attempted after a transition-from official press releases to participatory theater to Sesame Street-to sort through what has and has not worked and why. Together, these pieces make a powerful argument that efforts to deal with the past will fail unless they are connected to society. -- Tina Rosenberg, author of The Haunted Land: Facing Europe's Ghosts After Communism