Introducing Justicecraft: Political Change Across 
Space and Time
Lauren Balasco | orcid: 0000-0002-7639-7521
Political Science, Stockton University, Galloway, New Jersey, USA
Lauren.Balasco@stockton.edu
Bea Ciordia 
Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund (WPHF), United Nations,  
New York, USA
beatriz.ciordia@unwomen.org
Eliza Garnsey | orcid: 0000-0003-3481-5585
Department of Politics and International Studies, Cambridge University, 
Cambridge, United Kingdom
Corresponding author
esg35@cam.ac.uk
Sarine Karajerjian 
Environmental Politics, Arab Reform Initiative, Beirut, Lebanon
sarine.karajerjian@gmail.com 
Arnaud Kurze | orcid: 0000-0003-4624-4150
Justice Studies, Montclair State University, Montclair, New Jersey, USA
kurzea@montclair.edu
Christopher K. Lamont | orcid: 0000-0002-2508-5480
Institute for International Strategy, Tokyo International University,  
Tokyo, Japan
clamont@tiu.ac.jp
Nomzamo Ntombela | orcid: 0000-0003-1482-699X
Sociology and Social Anthropology, Stellenbosch University,  
Stellenbosch, South Africa
nomzamoportia7@gmail.com
©  LAUREN BALASCO ET AL., 2022 | doi:10.1163/25903276-bja10033
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license.
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Mariam Salehi | orcid: 0000-0001-9267-1511
INTERACT - Center for Interdisciplinary Peace and Conflict Research,  
Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
mariam.salehi@fu-berlin.de
For the The JusticeCraft Collective1
Abstract
Scholarship has often compartmentalised issues associated with injustice, political 
violence, and past wrongdoings. To contextualise questions of political change 
and justice across time and space, we introduce a dynamic, layered and transversal 
understanding of these processes. Drawing on Inés Valdez’s notion of “justice as a 
political craft,” we explore situated struggles for change and justice. Coping with 
injustice is contingent on context-specific conceptual and practical understandings 
of justice and grounded in particular experiences. Drawing on symbolic sites—the 
Uprising, the Audience, the Body, the Affect, the Island, and the Map—we highlight 
a variety of struggles against past, present and future injustices. Struggles for political 
change arise out of expanding, sometimes exploding, transitional justice knowledge(s). 
Claims to (in)justice are being made and received in different physical and symbolic 
sites. We lay out a framework of justicecraft to capture these intricacies, drawing on 
different conceptual lenses and empirical illustrations.
Keywords 
space – political change – justice – memory – social movements – accountability – art 
– cartography
Introduction
How can we think about social, political, and cultural shifts in society that may 
unfold sporadically and intermittently,2 and that are oftentimes accompanied 
1 The collective constitutes a network of scholars and practitioners conducting collaborative, 
international research on justice related issues. To learn more about the members and 
activities, see https://JusticeCraftCollective.net.
2 Chris Reus-Smit differentiates between breakpoint, evolutionary, and processual modes 
of change. Our approach is situated in the latter. See Chris Reus-Smit. Theory, history, and 
great transformations. International Theory 8, no.3 (2016):422–435.
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by more radical demands for change? Early research stressed the teleologi-
cal presuppositions and outcomes of change3 by emphasising cost-benefit 
analyses of change for communities, societies, or institutions; however, the 
literature reduces analytical efforts to a rational choice perspective. It also 
reduces the opportunity to gain a more complex understanding of the root 
causes of change, including external and internal factors, or a combination 
of both.4 Theories of change—regardless of their disciplinary grounding, 
theoretical perspective, or effects on communities—continue to be largely 
impact- oriented.5 This is also true for justice-focused research. Some argue 
that transformative change is necessary to reach key transitional justice goals. 
Yet the field has traditionally been characterised by state-driven, top-down 
practices, consequently “minimising the challenge that they pose to dominant 
frameworks” and structures.6 Against this backdrop, scholarship in the field 
has struggled to grasp the deeper meaning of change due, in part, to contin-
ued output-driven research and knowledge production.7 This article suggests 
a boundary-transcending paradigm shift. We need to change our analytical 
focus away from outcome and solely actor-centric evaluation.8
We propose to study the significance of struggles for change by observ-
ing various processes across different time periods and contexts. Our work 
explores six physical and symbolic sites in three parts. Part One centres on 
collective struggles with the Uprising and the Audience as sites of analysis. 
Part Two emphasises bodily struggles with the Body and the Affect. Part Three, 
which focuses on spatial struggles, engages the sites of the Island and the Map.
3 For a discussion on early iterations of theory of change, which originated in the field of 
program evaluation, see Peter F. Drucker, The Practice of Management (New York, NY: 
Harper Business, 1954).
4 Pitirim Aleksandrovich Sorokin, Social and Cultural Dynamics: A Study of Change in Major 
Systems of Art, Truth, Ethics, Law, and Social Relationships (Boston: Extending Horizons 
Books, 1957).
5 See for instance Timothy McLellan, “Impact, Theory of Change, and the Horizons of 
Scientific Practice,” Social Studies of Science 51, no. 1 (February 2021): 100–120; Dana Taplin et 
al., “Theory of Change TECHNICAL PAPERS A Series of Papers to Support Development of 
Theories of Change Based on Practice in the Field” (ActKnowledge, April 2013), http://www.
actknowledge.org/resources/documents/ToC-Tech-Papers.pdf.
6 Bronwyn Leebaw, “The Irreconcilable Goals of Transitional Justice,” Human Rights Quarterly 
30 (2008) 95–118.
7 Paul Gready and Simon Robins, “Transitional Justice and Theories of Change: Towards 
Evaluation as Understanding,” The International Journal of Transitional Justice 14, no. 2 (July 
21, 2020): 280–99.
8 See for instance Mariam Salehi, “A Processual Framework for Analysing Liberal Policy 
Interventions in Conflict Contexts” (International Studies Association, 2021).
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All six sites draw attention to a variety of struggles against past, present and 
future injustices and wrongdoings. Embedded within these sites are a vari-
ety of case illustrations situated at the periphery of high and low politics and 
official and informal strategies. Our scenic journey among a myriad of sites 
highlights the breadth of struggles that are all instrumental in fuelling pro-
cesses of political change. Embracing a different conceptual lens allows for a 
better understanding of the dynamic and transformative relationship between 
actors, contexts, and struggles for justice.
Inés Valdez’s understanding that justice is a political craft, which “allows 
us to uncover events that are unintelligible to existing frameworks” provides a 
conceptual lens that does just this.9 Political change emerges out of the strug-
gles for justice across time and space. For this, we need to focus on the “political 
craft through which global injustice is contested and alternative organisations 
of the world are imagined.”10 This allows us to imagine global injustice and 
struggle against it as interconnected yet local forms of domination and forms 
of transnational solidarity. Transnational cosmopolitanism then is grounded in 
concrete experiences of oppression and struggle against it. Therefore, we focus 
on conceptions of justice and practices of freedom developed in the struggle.11 
The notion of justice as political craft allows us to pay attention to political 
activity by a variety of actors in different political arenas. Valdez emphasises 
those spheres beyond the dichotomous domestic and international spheres, 
embracing the transnational. For us, the various levels and their interconnect-
edness serve as a conceptual glue to transversally connect notions of space 
and time. Her concept also focuses on strengthening political agency and coa-
litions, which are valuable for grounding, situating, and translating places of 
ideas during justice-driven struggles.
By exploring the interplay between space, the passage of time, agency, and 
power we uncover the political craft of justice and change, or justicecraft. It 
can be defined as situated struggles by individual and collective stakeholders 
for political change fuelled by dialectical justice-driven narratives and prac-
tices across different physical and symbolic spaces. Further, it creates a com-
mon language between different forms of research, highlighting the creation 
and evolution of ideas, which Donna Haraway referred to as “situated knowl-
edges.”12 The way we seek justice and go about it varies, depending on who is 
9 Inés Valdez, Transnational Cosmopolitanism: Kant, Du Bois, and Justice as a Political Craft 
(Cambridge University Press, 2019), 8.
10 Valdez, 1.
11 Valdez, 9.
12 “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial 
Perspective,” Feminist Studies: FS 14, no. 3 (1988): 581.
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involved, where it takes place and when it occurs. Consequently, we conceive 
of transitional justice practices as a fluid space-time continuum. It is antithet-
ical to the embedded temporal and spatial limits implicit in post-conflict and 
post-authoritarian justice efforts, in which transitions are conceived with an 
aim to end injustice. It also questions the spatial boundaries and limitations of 
justice and injustice. This framing allows us to question how knowledge about, 
and practices of, political change travel across spatial and temporal borders 
and are translated and transformed by society. The significance of this framing 
lies in how it makes transitional justice more receptive to recognising situated 
struggles and claims for justice; an essential task for comprehending the injus-
tices which are the long-term cause of conflict.
Transitional justice practices not only happen in the institutional and for-
mal spaces which have defined the field of study in the past, but also in the 
inside-out, the outside-in and the in-between spaces. As a result, our notion 
of space oscillates between physical locations and imagined social constructs; 
informal and formal venues; as well as emotive and rational thoughts, which 
materialise into different forms of spatial patterns, structures, or processes 
which we centre here in our analyses.
The struggles for change which occur in these spaces originate and develop 
through individuals and within groups, underscoring the important role of 
agency during such processes. The transversal nature of these processes is 
rooted, according to Nira Yuval-Davis, in a stakeholder’s “reflexive knowledge 
of their own positioning and identity” during these struggles.13 As such, justice 
processes require transdisciplinary perspectives to unpack how interactions 
amongst different stakeholders between the Global North and Global South 
are generating new ties and opportunities for political change. Indeed, the 
political changes we seek to map across space and time occur via an iterative 
process of political representation which emerges from different situated sites; 
sites which ongoing conflict and struggles against injustice compel us to take 
seriously, the first of which we now explore.
Part 1. Collective Struggles
Drawing on the notion of relational space is particularly helpful to capture and 
contextualise political change.14 We understand the concept of space in terms 
13 Yuval-Davis, Nira. “What Is ‘Transversal Politics’?” Soundings Summer, no. 12 (1999): 94–98.
14 Yongxuan Fu, “Towards Relational Spatiality: Space, Relation and Simmel’s Modernity.” 
Sociology (October 7, 2021): 1–17.
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of a close relationship between the daily struggles of lesser visible groups 
striving to seize power and control their social space against the backdrop of 
established discursive practices and institutional structures.15 In Part One, the 
Uprising and the Audience focus on justice-based processes of social change 
that evolve beyond formal political venues.
The Uprising
In recent years, prevailing demands for justice connect dispossessed citizens 
across the Americas. Popular uprisings and mass demonstrations call atten-
tion to the state and structural violence long endured by Black, Indigenous, 
and People of Colour. Demonstrators are contesting the entrenched economic 
and social inequalities that divide elites from the rest of the society, as well 
as the political arrangements that have consolidated them. In a similar vein, 
systemic police brutality and other human rights violations against historically 
excluded communities in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and the United 
States (to name a few) have all received global attention.16 As part of these 
mobilizations, protesters tore down statues of figures who, for too long, were 
hailed as the fathers, architects, and leaders of nations—instead of the perpe-
trators of mass violence and racism that they were.17 Citizens are questioning 
both the performance and legitimacy of their democracies18 and the larger 
neoliberal project in which they are embedded.19
15 Ece Yoltay, “Socio-Spatial Politics of Otherness: The Desire to Construct a Counterhegemony.” 
Space and Culture 24, no. 4 (November 2021): 585–603.
16 Sanoja Bhaumik, “Black Lives Matter Comes to Colombia,” June 23, 2020, https://
thebogotapost.com/black-lives-matter-comes-to-colombia/46928/; Ana Luisa González, 
“How Afro-Colombians Are Standing up Against Racial Violence,” Remezcla, June 19, 
2020, https://remezcla.com/features/culture/colombia-protests-black-lives-matter-racial- 
violence-in-country/; Benji Toruño, “Black Lives Matter Protests Resonate in Brazil,”  
Latin American Working Group, August 5, 2020, https://www.lawg.org/black-lives-matter- 
protests-resonate-in-brazil/.
17 Emilie Sweigart, “Latin America’s Controversial Statues: Will They Fall?,” Americas 
Quarterly, June 18, 2020, https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/latin-americas-
controversial-statues-will-they-fall/; Sabrina Velandia, “Which Colonial Statues Are Being 
Torn down in Latina America?,” Global Voices, January 23, 2021, https://globalvoices.
org/2021/01/23/which-are-the-colonial-statues-torn-down-in-latina-america/.
18 Sarah Repucci and Amy Slipowitz, “Democracy under Siege,” Freedom House, 2021, 
https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2021/democracy-under-siege; Elizabeth 
Zechmeister and Noam Lupu, “Pulse of Democracy” (lapop, 2019), https://www.
vanderbilt.edu/lapop/ab2018/2018-19_AmericasBarometer_Regional_Report_10.13.19.pdf.
19 Andrea Aguilar Córdoba, “Colombia Y Chile, Las Dos Caras de Una Misma Protesta 
En Latinoamérica,” Andalu Agency, June, 10, 2021, https://www.aa.com.tr/es/an%C3% 
A1lisis/colombia-y-chile-las-dos-caras-de-una-misma-protesta-en-latinoam%C3%A9rica/ 
2268918; Lucio Garriga Olmo, “‘Las Protestas En Colombia Son Efecto de La Crisis Del 
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As demands for a new social contract grow louder, transitional justice 
emerges as a potential space where diverse actors can congregate to elaborate 
their agendas for change. Indeed, these societies’ political and social contexts 
meet the very circumstances, or “conditions that must be in place for justice to 
be useful,” as articulated by Murphy: “pervasive structural inequality, normal-
ised collective and political wrongdoing, serious existential uncertainty, and 
fundamental uncertainty about authority.”20 And yet, these countries have 
had experience with transitional justice—and perhaps more illuminating are 
the profound societal demands for a deeper transformative justice that have 
remained after the tear gas dissipates and the dust settles.
This pursuit of transforming justice needs a theory of change.21 Here we 
provide the contours of such a theory of justice, as political craft, by examining 
how societies encounter and engage with past and present processes of tran-
sitional justice. In this light, we speak to the concept of “justice in transition,” 
which “seeks to understand how individuals and communities engage with 
needs, rights, custom, community, agency and mobilisation, and how they 
contest continuities of injustice and seek justice in their local environment 
and with regard to the state.”22 Our departure point are society’s encounters 
with transitional justice, and then—through mechanisms of resistance, recla-
mation, and resilience—we observe transformative justice demands for a new 
social contract that addresses the politico-economic orderings that continue 
to perpetuate structural and racialized violence against citizens.
Before proceeding to our analysis of said mechanisms, a brief overview of 
transformative justice is in order. Transformative justice is a process-based 
approach to justice that locates contemporary trends of injustice—such as 
political disenfranchisement, economic deprivation, and the criminalization 
of marginalised populations—in a country’s historical roots of repression, 
exclusion, and violence. In this regard, these historical roots are “through lines” 
which must be uprooted by transforming socioeconomic structures, state 
institutions, and relations amongst citizens, to sever the perpetuation of these 
harms, and improve people’s livelihoods. Transformative justice organisers, 
Neoliberalismo,’” accessed July 9, 2021, https://www.letrap.com.ar/nota/2021-5-19-11-27-0-- 
las-protestas-son-efecto-de-la-crisis-del-neoliberalismo-en-colombia.
20 Colleen Murphy, The Conceptual Foundations of Transitional Justice (Cambridge University 
Press, 2017).
21 Padraig McAuliffe, Transformative Transitional Justice and the Malleability of Post-Conflict 
States (UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017).
22 Paul Gready and Simon Robins, “Rethinking Civil Society and Transitional Justice: Lessons 
from Social Movements and ‘new’ Civil Society,” The International Journal of Human 
Rights 21, no. 7 (September 2, 2017): 957.
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then, work to establish local, community-based processes of accountabil-
ity after harm, without relying on the state institutions that cause additional 
violence through carceral logic and criminal justice systems. In this regard, 
transformative justice embraces more readily the mandate of changing both 
societal structures and attitudes to promote harm reduction and communi-
ty-based accountability rather than relying on institutions that, in the name 
of punishment, remove people from society but fail to deter future acts of 
violence.23
As noted, three possible mechanisms explain how societal interactions with 
transitional justice may lead to transformative justice demands and practices: 
resistance, reclamation, and resilience. These mechanisms also aid in the 
development of a theory of political change that de-centres transitional justice 
to explore tangential experiences and understandings of justice within society 
that may lead to transformative justice agendas. These mechanisms are “unob-
served analytical constructs” that serve to provide a causal explanation for an 
observed relationship between two or more phenomena.24 Three points bear 
emphasis. First, these mechanisms are contested concepts; their definitions 
are not settled debates in the field. Second, more than one mechanism may 
be at work throughout the same time and space. Third, the empirical actual-
ization of these mechanisms is deeply contextual, and may vary across and 
within societies. Still, they all share one common outcome: each one explains 
how societal engagement with transitional justice translates into demands for 
deeper structural reforms in various temporal and spatial contexts.
Resistance
Resistance is a “purposeful act intended by the actor to work against, pre-
vent, or disrupt the intended or implemented formal transitional justice pro-
cess.”25 Actors may resist transitional justice processes for a variety of reasons, 
without necessarily dismissing the principles of transitional justice per se.26 
23 Ejeris Dixon and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Beyond Survival: Strategies and 
Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement (Chico, 2020); Mariame Kaba and Kelly 
Hayes, “The Sentencing of Larry Nassar Was Not ‘Transformative Justice.’ Here’s Why,” in 
We Do This ‘Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice, ed. Mariame 
Kaba (Chicago, 2021), 59.
24 Peter Hedström and Richard Swedberg, “Social Mechanisms: An Introductory Essay,” 
in An Analytical Approach to Social Theory, ed. Peter Hedström and Richard Swedberg 
(Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 13.
25 Briony Jones and Julie Bernath, “Resistance and Transitional Justice,” in Resistance in 
Transitional Justice., ed. Briony Jones and Julie Bernath (New York: Routledge, 2018), 8.
26 Jones and Bernath, “Resistance and Transitional Justice,” 2018.
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Resistance, then, can target the ways in which the state attempts to carry 
out such mandates, or in the cases of Colombia and Guatemala, the state’s 
reluctance in fulfilling the most transformative components of the countries’ 
respective peace agreements. Indeed, these two examples show where societal 
resistance against the state’s failure to carry out the principles of their peace 
accords translate into new demands for structural transformation.
Both the Guatemalan and Colombian peace accords were extensive in their 
guarantees of agrarian and economic reforms, observance of human rights, and 
establishing a more inclusive democratic process. Indeed, much of their lan-
guage reflects the normative commitments of transformative justice funnelled 
through transitional justice processes.27 However, the Duque Administration 
in Colombia, and the Giammattei Administration in Guatemala, have made 
attempts to reduce the financial and institutional resources to carry out struc-
tural reforms needed for agrarian reform, economic equality, and indigenous 
rights. This “state abdication”28 has had dire consequences, as local social 
leaders and human rights defenders, intent on implementing the principles of 
the peace accords, fall victim to high rates of assassination in each country.29 
The state’s failure to protect these leaders has led to protests to decry the con-
tinuation of violence in a post-accord environment. Most notably, on 26 July 
2019, thousands of individuals gathered throughout Colombia, and around the 
world, to participate in the social protest #Julio26Grito to call attention to the 
skyrocketing number of social leaders assassinated in Colombia since the sign-
ing of the 2016 peace accord.30
27 ABColombia, “Hacia Un Cambio Transformador: Las Mujeres Y La Implementación 
Del Acuerdo de Paz Colombiano,” November 27, 2018, https://www.abcolombia.org.
uk/hacia-un-cambio-transformador-es/; Lauren Marie Balasco and Julio F. Carrión, 
“Required Consultation or Provoking Confrontation? The Use of the Referendum 
in Peace Agreements,” Representation 55, no. 2 (July 15, 2019): 141–57; Dáire Mc Gill, 
“Operationalising Transformative Justice in Transitional Societies: Applying the Structural 
Violence Reduction Matrix in Colombia” (PhD, Ulster University, 2018), https://pure.ulster.
ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/63696817/2018McGillDPhD.pdf.
28 Joanna R. Quinn, “The Impact of State Abdication on Transitional Justice: When Non-
State Actors and Other States Fill the Post-Transition Gap,” Peacebuilding 9, no. 2 (April 3, 
2021): 12.
29 Maria Martin, “Killings Of Guatemala’s Indigenous Activists Raise Specter Of Human 
Rights Crisis,” NPR, January 22, 2019, https://www.npr.org/2019/01/22/685505116/killings-
of-guatemalas-indigenous-activists-raise-specter-of-human-rights-crisis; “Los 199 Líderes 
Sociales Asesinados En 2020, La Otra Tragedia a La Sombra Del Covid-19,” El Spectador, 
May 21, 2021, https://www.elespectador.com/colombia-20/paz-y-memoria/los-199-lideres-
sociales-asesinados-en-2020-la-otra-tragedia-a-la-sombra-del-covid-19-article/.
30 Adriaan Alsema, “Protests to Support Colombia’s Social Leaders Held in More than 
100 Cities Worldwide,” Colombia Reports, July 26, 2019, https://colombiareports.com/
protests-to-support-colombias-social-leaders-held-in-more-than-100-cities-worldwide/.
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In the case of Guatemala, human rights leaders still today draw upon the 
transformative justice principles outlined, but so far unfulfilled, in the 1999 
peace accords to continue their resistance against the state’s failure to trans-
form its security and economic institutions, and to protect and uplift the coun-
try’s majority indigenous population. In 2020, President Alejandro Giammattei 
dissolved the Presidential Secretariat for Women (seprem), The Secretariat for 
Peace (sepaz), the Presidential Commission for Human Rights (copredeh) 
and the Secretariat of Agrarian Affairs (saa) to consolidate their mandates 
under one institution, the Presidential Commission for Peace and Human 
Rights (codapeh). Survivors of the genocide were not consulted prior to mak-
ing this decision, and Guatemalan human rights advocates raised concerns 
that this will prevent the future monitoring and implementation of the peace 
agreements, including the distribution of future reparations to survivors.31 In 
response, rural and urban communities have allied with human rights lawyers 
to contest this move through legal action.32 In a parallel but related develop-
ment, protests erupted in late 2020 against systemic corruption and inequality 
in the country, along with calls “for a multisectoral constitutional assembly 
to establish a plurinational state with Indigenous territorial autonomy, and to 
break with racist, patriarchal patterns that subvert democracy.”33
In sum, indigenous leaders and human rights defenders continue to resist 
new waves of militarization and neoliberalism that perpetuate land dispos-
session and therefore fly in the face of victim recognition and reparations. 
Resistance can lead to transformative justice demands because human rights 
and community leaders, in decrying state inaction, are putting on the fore 
claims that, if addressed, can redress some of the historical legacies of social 
justice, economic inequality, and racism that still plague indigenous and rural 
communities in both Colombia and Guatemala.
Reclamation
Reclamation is the practice of re-asserting or re-cultivating spaces (physical or 
temporal) that may have been denied, erased, or altered through violence, as 
31 “La Paz En Riesgo: Analisis Del Cierre de Las Instituciones de La Paz in Guatemala” 
(Impunity Watch, November 2020), https://www.impunitywatch.nl/docs/PolicyBrief_
LaPazEnRiesgo_Cierre_Instituciones_Paz1.pdf; “Statement: Survivors of the Internal Armed 
Conflict Reject Attempts to Shut down sepaz,” Network in Solidarity with the People of 
Guatemala (NISGUA), accessed July 9, 2021, https://nisgua.org/statement-survivors-sepaz/.
32 Eva Roció Herrara, interview by Justicevision Podcast, January 4, 2020.
33 Nicholas Copeland, “In Guatemala, Resignations Are Not Enough,” NACLA Reporting, 
December 16, 2020, https://nacla.org/news/2020/12/16/guatemala-resignations-are- 
not-enough.
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explored by the Body and the Affect. Reclamation seeks to create opportuni-
ties for new and invigorated calls for justice. Reclamation is a particular mech-
anism of engagement that explains how civil society organisations mobilise to 
reassert, or even expand, justice demands that although previously promised 
were dismissed, ignored, or violated. A central promise of transitional justice is 
that the authoritarian practices of the past must not be ever again reproduced. 
And yet, the practice that we see in the Americas is that human rights viola-
tions continue and are even couched in legacy legislation from the authoritar-
ian past. In this context, one way in which reclamation works is by redefining 
the temporal concerns of transitional justice: it should not only be dedicated 
to remembering the past but also to engage with the practices of the present. 
This temporal reclamation is clearly exemplified by the work conducted by 
some memory-based organisations in Argentina and Chile, which are reclaim-
ing the temporal scope of their mission.
In Argentina and Chile, where incidents of disappearances and police bru-
tality continue despite both countries’ transitions to democracy, individuals 
and communities are engaging in reclamation to highlight the connection 
between past and present. Francesca Lessa, for example, shows how transfor-
mation is needed in Argentina to address a “culture of impunity; the lack of 
police reform, and a social context receptive to and supportive of violence.”34 
More recently, citizens have participated in the “Marcha Nacional contra el 
Gatillo Facil” (“National March against the Trigger-Happy”) to denounce 
excessive force used by the police.35 Michelle Bonner’s work on current police 
violence in Argentina examines how citizens have worked to reclaim their citi-
zenship, which involves “altering the organisation of power” through account-
ability for said violence and contesting dominant framing that criminalises 
those who dissent.36
In Chile, memory-based sites and organizations (such as Londres 38 and 
Casa Memoria José Domingo Cañas) originally dedicated to codifying a dic-
tatorship’s legacy of terror and state violence, are moving beyond “focusing 
on the past” to do so.37 Instead, these memory sites are using their physical 
34 Francesca Lessa, “Beyond Transitional Justice: Exploring Continuities in Human Rights 
Abuses in Argentina between 1976 and 2010,” Journal of Human Rights Practice 3, no. 1 
(March 1, 2011): 25–48.
35 “Thousands Protest against ‘Trigger-Happy’ Police in Argentina,” Telesur, August 29, 2019, 
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Thousands-Protest-against-Trigger-Happy-Police-in-
Argentina-20190829-0022.html.
36 Michelle D. Bonner, “Reclaiming Citizenship from Police Violence,” Citizenship Studies, 
March 29, 2021, 1–16.
37 Lauren Marie Balasco, “Sites of Memory as Spaces for Accountability: Transformative 
Justice in Chile Today” (International Studies Association, 2021).
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spaces and public platforms to call attention to the state’s current repression 
and economic policies against indigenous communities and other groups who 
mobilise around issues related to their livelihood security. The transformative 
potential of reclamation was further manifested in the series of large-scale pro-
tests in Chile, in late 2019, against a 3.7% increase in metro fares. These protests 
morphed into a larger outcry against the country’s deep socioeconomic ineq-
uities, the state’s mistreatment, and abuse against the Mapuche (Chile’s largest 
indigenous community), and the recent spate of economic crimes by political 
elites (including tax evasion and corruption). Protesters chanted “No son 30 
pesos, son 30 años” (“It’s not 30 pesos, it’s 30 years”).38 The phrase denotes the 
connections between long-standing socioeconomic grievances and insecuri-
ties Chileans confront in a post-transition era, and the neoliberal authoritarian 
legacy of military rule under General Augusto Pinochet (1972–1990). The work 
of these groups, alongside the protests rejecting economic neoliberalism, are 
symbolically akin to tributary streams merging into a river of transformative 
demands in Chile and Argentina.
Chile and Argentina are examples where the structural and institutional 
legacies of authoritarianism—when left unresolved—create a crisis of regime 
legitimacy and people’s livelihood security. The extension of these unresolved 
conditions in post-transition contexts exposes the limitations and reluctance 
of consolidated democratic regimes in dealing with the past, which, in turn, 
ultimately reproduce the practices that undermine people’s dignity and live-
lihood conditions. Reclamation acts as a driver for transformative change 
because it re-defines the narrow spatial and temporal mandates of traditional 
transitional justice and puts forth an agenda that focuses on structural change.
Resilience
Resilience is a concept that is receiving increasing attention in the transitional 
justice field, especially as it pertains to how such mechanisms can strengthen 
a community’s capacity to rebuild after mass atrocity.39 Resilience “relies on 
38 Marcia Carmo, “‘Chile Despertó’: Susana Hidalgo, La Famosa Actriz Que Tomó La Imagen 
Más Icónica de Las Protestas,” BBC News Brasil, October 30, 2019, https://www.bbc.
com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-50239591; Sergio Caniugueo Huircapan, “Pueblo 
Mapuche Y La Inflexión Histórica Del 18/O,” CIPER, October 31, 2019, https://www.
ciperchile.cl/2019/10/31/pueblo-mapuche-y-la-inflexion-historica-del-18-o/; Fernanda 
Paúl, “Protestas En Chile: Las 6 Grandes Deudas Sociales Por Las Que Muchos Chilenos 
Dicen Sentirse ‘Abusados,’” BBC Mundo, October 21, 2019, https://www.bbc.com/mundo/
noticias-america-latina-50124583.
39 Janine Natalya Clark, “Thinking Systemically About Transitional Justice, Legal Systems, 
and Resilience,” in Multisystemic Resilience: Adaptation and Transformation in Contexts of 
Change, ed. Michael Ungar (Oxford UK: Oxford University Press, 2021), 530=550; Philipp 
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ideas of self-organisation, adaptation, transformation, and survival in the face 
of adversity of crisis.”40 Resilience is not the same as acceptance, acquiescence, 
or resignation. Further, a community’s ability to engage in resilience under sys-
tems of oppression and violence should not excuse or overlook those systems. 
Instead, it reflects a community’s capacity to adapt, organise, and transform 
space to confront adversity. Here, we may think of how communities may 
derive resilience from transitional justice engagement, but as we see in Brazil 
in the United States, transitional justice does not reflect the practices of trans-
formative justice, or deeper transformative institutional change, such as the 
abolition of the prison industrial complex.
The United States and Brazil share similar experiences of multi-racial 
democracies plagued by criminal justice policies and state violence that target 
Black and Indigenous communities. They also have two of the largest prison 
populations in the world (the United States ranks first, Brazil third), the major-
ity of whom are Black citizens.41 In Brazil and the United States, transformative 
justice and abolitionist organisations that advocate for the right to memory, 
truth, and reparations do not see these institutions as ends in themselves; 
instead, they are meant to facilitate a process for deeper reforms, and to dis-
mantle the state’s carceral logic and socioeconomic inequities that hurt com-
munities of colour. The Right to Memory and Racial Justice Initiative (idmjr) 
in Brazil advocates for “the right to memory for victims and family members 
of State violence, with centrality in confronting structural racism and claiming 
for racial justice” by documenting state violence and calling for the abolition of 
the police.42 Abolitionist and transformative justice organizer Mariame Kaba 
has stressed the importance of a formal apology and reparations legislation 
passed by the Chicago City Council for the Burge police torture survivors.43 
Reparations and truth commissions, then, are an important accountability, but 
Kastner, “A Resilience Approach to Transitional Justice?,” Journal of Intervention and 
Statebuilding 14, no. 3 (May 26, 2020): 368–88.
40 Clemence Humbert and Jonathan Joseph, “Introduction: The Politics of Resilience: 
Problematising Current Approaches,” Resilience 7, no. 3 (September 2, 2019): 215.
41 Lara Bartilotti Picanço, “Brazil’s Mass Incarceration Policy Has Not Stopped Crime,”  
Wilson Center, August 30, 2019, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/brazils-mass- 
incarceration-policy-has-not-stopped-crime.
42 “Iniciativa Direito à Memória E Justiça Racial,” Iniciativa Direito à Memória e Justiça 
Racial, accessed July 9, 2021, https://dmjracial.com/quem-somos/.
43 Mariame Kaba, We Do This ’Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice 
(Haymarket Books, 2021), 21. It is important to emphasize that, at least in the United 
States, transformative justice practice is not the same as abolition work, although typically 
the work done by these communities hold the same views of how the construction of 
criminal justice systems continues to oppress, rather than rehabilitate.
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transformative justice and abolition organising requires moving beyond “an 
individualised response to what is a systemic problem.”44 Transformative jus-
tice organisers then work to establish local, community-based accountability 
processes to bypass the state and its carceral logic. Communities facing sys-
temic violence from the state build resilience by stressing the transformative 
ways to deal with harm.45 Jamani Montague of Critical Resistance (an aboli-
tionist and transformative justice organisation (in the U.S) argues that com-
munities must create “a sense of collective care and interdependency” as they 
work to manage harm without involving the state.46 Resilience can potentially 
generate transformative demands because it leads communities affected by 
harm to look at ways of questioning the legitimacy of structures and institu-
tions that, while portrayed as protectors of individuals, reflect instead legacies 
of institutionalised racism and oppression. In contesting the logics of these 
systems of violence, transformative justice proponents are envisioning new 
ways to define justice and addressing harms to communities.
Crises of democratic legitimacy in the Americas inform how societies 
engage with past and potential transitional justice mechanisms and, through 
these “situated struggles,” generate transformative justice demands. Broader 
inquiries that elaborate on the nuances of social actors’ reclamation, resist-
ance, and resilience, particularly in the context of temporal reformulations 
and varying spaces of encounter and engagement with transitional justice, 
remain limited, yet necessary as captured in our introduction. And yet, these 
mechanisms give us the keystones for a theory of justicecraft, and as these 
case illustrations highlight, transformative change. By illuminating how they 
can redefine the agenda, expand the scope, and envision new realities, these 
mechanisms provide the analytical leverage to scrutinise the democratisation 
of transitional justice as a process. We also can identify the formal and infor-
mal spaces where protagonists voice, claim, and occupy alternative visions of 
justice, as the Audience further examines.
The Audience
As we later show with the Island, transitional justice studies zoom in on those 
actors and spaces that appropriate for themselves the language of transitional 
44 Kaba, 66.
45 Chantal Da Silva, “The ‘Defund the Police’ Movement Is Growing. Here’s What It Actually 
Means,” Newsweek, June 4, 2020, https://www.newsweek.com/defund-police-movement- 
growing-heres-what-it-actually-means-1508761. Chantal Da Silva, “The ‘Defund the Police’ 
Movement Is Growing. Here’s What It Actually Means.” Newsweek. June 4, 2020. https://www.
newsweek.com/defund-police-movement-growing-heres-what-it-actually-means-1508761.
46 Da Silva.
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justice. This appropriation’s technical language masks how transitional justice 
performs justicecraft. However, there are several concomitant spaces where 
justice discourses play out such as racial justice, social justice, and postcolo-
nial justice. In some cases, these spaces intersect, and at times even overlap, 
such as in Canada and parts of the United States that addressed settler colonial 
violence against indigenous communities through truth commissions. Indeed, 
the Uprisings shed light on how in both Brazil and the United States justice 
demands opened up new spaces for resistance. It is within these “in between” 
spaces47 actors can engage with a broader audience that may not see itself as 
engaged in transitional justice work. However, in many instances paradigmatic 
transitional justice has left out a number of spaces where justicecraft takes 
place. This is not unintentional. As Seiko Mimaki points out, the practice of 
international lawyers purposefully trying not to see the political functions of 
international law or questioning a world order in which imperial relations are 
reproduced has a long genealogy in the United States.48 This section flips our 
analytical lens and explores how by looking at how justicecraft is received on 
the part of the audience not only helps to better explore the political craft that 
accounts for change—particularly in relation to resistance, reclamation, and 
resilience—but also exposes the limitations of narrow mechanistic imagin-
ings of transitional justice.
We define non-transitional justice spaces where justicecraft takes place 
as those spaces where actors engage in confronting injustice and advancing 
claims to justice outside the hegemonic discourses of transitional justice, 
which through an emphasis on legal and political process place the onus of 
making justice in the hands of an elite professional community who may 
or may not choose to engage with a transnational community of epistemic 
experts. However, by focusing on institutions, while ignoring how these insti-
tutions came to exercise authority—racial inequality, settler colonialism, 
legacies of imperialism, transitional justice practice at the very beginning 
abandons more radical justicecraft to pursue transitional justice as a sort of 
neo-Kantian project,49 whereby the institutions, norms, and practice centred 
around governance in the West, serve as a template for mimicry in the context 
47 Sida Liu, “Between Social Spaces.” European Journal of Social Theory 24, no. 1 (February 1, 
2021): 123–39.
48 Seiko Mimaki, “Law Against Empire, or Law for Empire? – American Imagination and 
the International Legal Order in the Twentieth Century,” The Journal of Imperial and 
Commonwealth History 49, no. 3 (May 4, 2021): 553–75.
49 Valdez, Transnational Cosmopolitanism: Kant, Du Bois, and Justice as a Political Craft.
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of societies where the most significant harm was inflicted by the West.50 To 
understand elite-driven justice processes, we must first turn to the imperial 
audience.
The Imperial Audience
Privileging transitional justice as a legal and technical process also reinforces 
unequal power relations that are wielded within and among states. For exam-
ple, because international law served as the framework through which colonial 
harms were addressed, these settlements took the form of elite compromises 
ratified through inter-state treaties, which lacked any broad public consulta-
tion. In many cases, these treaties were quickly concluded with newly inde-
pendent authoritarian regimes that had little interest in settling crimes of the 
past. As a result, not only were such harms defined out of the transitional jus-
tice problem space from the inception of the field, when attempts to address 
the legacy of colonial harms are raised, these international legal settlements 
act as a barrier to pushing the scope of transitional justice to include systemic 
abuses committed by colonial states.51
In the case of South Korea, the 1965 Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan 
and the Republic of Korea, a treaty that formally settled the legacy of Japan’s 
colonial and wartime conduct, has acted to shield successive governments 
in Tokyo from justice demands.52 Moreover, the legitimacy of this agree-
ment, negotiated on behalf of South Korea by the military dictatorship led by 
General Park Chung-Hee, is from the perspective of international law beyond 
reproach. Yet, the 1965 Treaty on Basic Relations is also a textbook example of 
elite international lawmaking as a tool to subvert more radical demands for 
change. More recently, the agreement between Germany and Namibia could 
be considered another such example. This agreement, which included an apol-
ogy for Germany’s genocide of Namibia’s Ovaherero and Nama peoples and 
the provision of 1.1 billion Euro in development assistance—falls far short of 
50 For example, Laryssa Chomiak illustrates the symbolic significance of situating the start 
date of the period of time covered under transitional justice in 1955, a year before Tunisia 
gained independence because of the perceived role of France in orchestrating Habib 
Bourguiba’s consolidation of power over the independence movement, and eventually 
setting in motion Bourguiba’s consolidation of authoritarian rule in Tunisia. Laryssa 
Chomiak, “Tunisia: The Colonial Legacy and Transitional Justice,” October 26, 2017, https://
www.africaportal.org/publications/tunisia-colonial-legacy-and-transitional-justice/.
51 Catherine Lu, Justice and Reconciliation in World Politics (Cambridge University Press, 
2017).
52 Kenji Kawase. “Japan-South Korea Dispute Has Roots in 1965 Postwar Agreement.” 
Nikkei Asia, July 31, 2019. https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/The-Big-Story/ Japan-South- 
Korea-dispute-has-roots-in-1965-postwar-agreement.
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reparation. In fact, it follows a model adopted by postwar Japan in providing 
reparation in the form of official development assistance rather than a wider 
program aimed at acknowledging and redressing past harm inflicted through 
colonial practices.
As a result of this exclusion from the elite politics of inter-state settlements, 
victims of human rights harms and activists who sought to advance justice 
struggles did not adopt the vocabulary or ideational template of transitional 
justice. Across much of East Asia, where the Second World War brought about 
the dismemberment of Japan’s colonial empire, but also the retrenchment of 
European and American colonial interests in the region, legacies of violence, 
to the extent they were addressed at all, were left to elite compromises. In the 
case of the Tokyo Tribunal, the statute of the Tribunal explicitly eschewed 
Japan’s own colonial past in favour of a narrow jurisdictional scope that only 
examined Japan’s wartime actions so as not to raise uncomfortable questions 
or parallels relating the conduct of the French in Indochina or the Dutch in 
Indonesia.53
Yet this exclusion from a transitional justice space opened up a new space 
where the past could be challenged in a broader public sphere. Here, we can 
consider, for example, practices and locations where social actors engage with 
the past in the form of new encounters. While these social actors engage with 
the past, they do so unconsciously, unknowingly and/or sometimes purpose-
fully with the intent to exclude any reference to collective memory processes 
or transitional justice strategies.
Another example, drawn from the struggle against racial injustice in the 
United States, comes from the State of Mississippi, where criminal trials held 
in the late 1990s and early 2000s sought to “close the books” on civil rights 
era racial violence in the state. However, the criminal justice system’s focus 
on individual criminal responsibility, allowed the state to convict Ku Klux 
Klansmen of civil rights era murders, while also refusing to acknowledge state 
complicity in these murders.54 As a result, a bottom-up initiative, which ini-
tially took the form of community roundtables, sought to establish a non-state 
truth seeking mechanism for the state. However, as this bottom-up initiative 
began to appropriate the vocabulary of paradigmatic transitional justice, the 
inability to secure any elite level buy-in blocked any attempt to transcend into 
transitional justice.
53 Catherine Lu, Justice and Reconciliation in World Politics. (Cambridge University Press, 
2017).
54 Christopher Lamont, “Justice and Transition in Mississippi: Opening the Books on the 
American South,” Politics 30, no. 3 (October 2010): 183–90.
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Audiences of Justicecraft
In Japan, the vast majority of actors involved in efforts to acknowledge past 
state abuses are situated in non-transitional justice spaces. Non-governmental 
associations that engage with the legacy of Japan’s imperial and wartime past 
do not purposefully see themselves as transitional justice agents. Indeed, the 
term transitional justice, iko-ki segi, is a narrow technical term that is mainly 
only applied in the context of Japanese development assistance abroad, and 
not at home, where imperial and wartime legacies are framed as ‘historical 
recognition problems,’ or rekishi ninshiki mondai. It is within this context, that 
civil society efforts to confront Japan’s wartime past have not advocated for 
traditional transitional justice measures, such as truth commissions or trials. 
Instead, art has long been a medium for anti-war advocacy. Artistic interven-
tions can take place in non-justice spaces and elicit an effective response. 
There is a diverse body of postwar artistic practice that can help illuminate 
this. For example, Goro Shikoku’s artwork focused on the lives of those lost in 
the nuclear attack on Hiroshima.
Affective responses can also include significant backlashes against artistic 
interventions that challenge dominant, or elite, understandings of a contested 
past. In the case of the 2019 Aichi Triennale Art Festival in Japan, an art exhi-
bition featuring a comfort woman statue and also an exhibit that appeared 
to show the immolation of Japan’s wartime emperor provoked a significant 
backlash from Japanese rightists who saw the artwork as challenging nation-
alist wartime narratives. In 2021, there was an attempt to organise a second 
viewing of this exhibit in the Tokyo ward of Shinjuku, which was cancelled due 
to threats against the venue that was to host this event.
While Japan, the United States, and Caribbean states, have found them-
selves on the periphery of transitional justice inquiry and practice throughout 
much of the field’s development and professionalisation, exploring justice in 
non-justice spaces highlights how the conceptual lens of justicecraft can pro-
vide a vocabulary to shed light on broader justice practices aimed at social, 
political, or economic transformation. It also fuels questions on further break-
ing down the professionalisation of tj practices.
As many human rights advocates and civil society ngos do not identify with 
transitional justice practice, the question arises as to what impact “space travel” 
has on efforts to confront the past.55 This includes the role of agents who are 
able to move between transitional justice and non-transitional justice spaces 
55 Arnaud Kurze and Christopher K. Lamont. “Breaking the Transitional Justice Machine: 
Exploring Spatiality, Space Travel, and Inbetween Spaces in Research Practice.” Political 
Anthropological Research on International Social Sciences (PARISS) 2, (2021):155–178.
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and whether their location-related movement hampers or fuels justice-related 
change within society. The conceptual site of the Island provides us with the 
tools to begin to unpack these questions through a visualisation of who is wel-
come in this space and who is excluded. Furthermore, who decides on what 
power constellation prevails? Next, the objective is to better understand the 
tensions between informal and formal spaces, as explained and elaborated 
upon with the Uprising, and which will later be addressed with the Island.
Part 2. Bodily Struggles
Agency is complex, multilayered and transversal. It raises questions about 
who gains access to means that fuel change and more specifically about rep-
resentation, and whether recognition within society requires passage through 
formal institutions in order to gain legitimacy. Here, the Body and the Affect 
explore physical and emotional agency during post-conflict justice processes 
and across different sites.
The Body
Women are particularly affected in the aftermath of violence and war during 
times of political change, inciting the United Nations (UN) Economic and 
Social Council (ecosoc) to advocate for gender mainstreaming, a concept of 
broadly including gender-relevant perspective in UN programming in 1997.56 
Since then a growing gender consciousness has preoccupied scholars and 
practitioners, including the field of transitional justice. Some have reflected on 
the evolving relationship between official transitional justice responses and 
women during political and social transitions over the past several decades.57 
While scholarship on multi-layered and transversal issues has flourished,58 
work on the concept of violence in relations to women’s bodies and the notion 
56 See ecosoc website at https://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw/GMS.PDF, accessed 
June 1, 2021.
57 Catherine O’Rourke, Gender Politics in Transitional Justice (Routledge, 2013).
58 See for instance Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, “Advancing Feminist Positioning in the Field of 
Transitional Justice,” The International Journal of Transitional Justice 6, no. 2 (July 1, 2012): 
205–28; Christine Bell, Colm Campbell, and Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, “Transitional Justice:(Re) 
Conceptualising the Field,” International Journal of Law in Context 3, no. 02 (2007): 81–88; 
Dietrich Ortega and Luisa Maria, “Transitional Justice and Female Ex-Combatants: Lessons 
Learned from International Experience,” Disarming the Past: Transitional Justice and 
Ex-Combatants, New York, Social Science Research Council, 2009, 158–89; Louise Chappell, 
Rosemary Grey, and Emily Waller, “The Gender Justice Shadow of Complementarity: 
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of subjectivity against the backdrop of gender roles are still developing.59 
Therefore, we focus on body politic, mapping violence, particularly against 
women and frame it against the backdrop of the quest for justice and the need 
for change.
In this context, some have begun deconstructing the notion of masculinity, 
to further explore and understand systemic barriers, calling for a more nuanced 
understanding and the varied discursive practices of “masculinities” as social 
norms and practices that hamper more inclusive gender-inclusive approaches 
in the field.60 Related to these structural obstacles are repressive, dominant 
tropes, such as security-related questions, which are often tied to post-conflict 
and transition-focused policy agendas in international relations.61 As a result, 
women are often labelled as victims.62 Yet in most circumstances, agency 
harnessed by individual and collective efforts to confront violence and past 
wrongdoings are characterised by critical, creative and transformative engage-
ments.63 “Blindspots” and “gender gaps,” however, as Philipp Schulz, argues, 
remain visible, particularly with regards to local perceptions and understand-
ings of gender and justice.64 It forces us to “(un)learn and (re)consider the mul-
tiple ways in which gender norms and understandings affect women, men and 
those outside the gender binary differently.”65
In a similar vein, injustice endured by women during conflict or episodes of 
violence have lasting effects not only from the primary physical trauma experi-
enced in the first place, but also from social stigma and norms that harshly and 
unfairly punish many of them upon their return home at the end of a violent 
conflict period. The logic of trauma thus transgresses initial, physical sites of 
Lessons from the International Criminal Court’s Preliminary Examinations in Guinea and 
Colombia,” The International Journal of Transitional Justice 7, no. 3 (November 1, 2013): 
455–75.
59 Lauren B. Wilcox, Bodies of Violence: Theorizing Embodied Subjects in International 
Relations, Oxford Studies in Gender and International Relations (New York: Oxford 
University Press, 2015).
60 Brandon Hamber, “Masculinity and Transitional Justice: An Exploratory Essay,” The 
International Journal of Transitional Justice 1, no. 3 (December 1, 2007): 378.
61 Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, “Women, Security, and the Patriarchy of Internationalized 
Transitional Justice,” Human Rights Quarterly 31 (2009): 1055.
62 Susanne Buckley-Zistel, “Redressing Sexual Violence in Transitional Justice and the 
Labelling of Women as ‘Victims,’” in Victims of International Crimes: An Interdisciplinary 
Discourse, ed. Thorsten Bonacker and Christoph Safferling (The Hague, The Netherlands: 
T. M. C. Asser Press, 2013), 91–100.
63 Annika Björkdahl and Johanna Mannergren Selimovic, “Gendering Agency in Transitional 
Justice,” Security Dialogue 46, no. 2 (April 1, 2015): 165–82.
64 Philipp Schulz, “Towards Inclusive Gender in Transitional Justice: Gaps, Blind-Spots and 
Opportunities,” Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 14, no. 5 (October 19, 2020): 692.
65 Ibid., p. 692.
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harm, spanning to areas and contexts that are not originally identified as the 
primary site of an individual and sometimes collective struggle. Struggles, as 
in this example, expand and transform, following and affecting victims and the 
communities they live in.
Storytelling, as some have highlighted, empowers women to step out of the 
silence and gain a voice in official processes of transition.66 Yet spaces that 
allow for individual and collective empowerment of women’s narratives are 
often invisible, contested, or subject to gatekeeping, as we pointed out in the 
Island. Building on this innovative gender-focused work, we survey three case 
studies, South Africa, Beirut, and Colombia to further explore the daily strug-
gles of women’s voices in times of social and political change. Our objective 
lies in gaining a deeper and more nuanced understanding of individual lives 
as they unfold under challenging conditions. We also weigh our observations 
against their ability to cope with change within their respective post-conflict 
and post-authoritarian environments. Despite the challenging conditions on 
the ground, the potential for empowerment exists. However, successfully har-
nessing this potential is contingent on different case-specific factors. Let us 
turn to each of the cases, starting with the impact of the legacy of failing to 
adequately address gender violence in post-apartheid South Africa, Syria and 
Colombia.
Reclaiming Spaces and Voices
Over a quarter century after the repressive, institutionalized system of racial 
segregation, apartheid, ended in South Africa, accounts portraying the suffer-
ing and pain of women during this period continue to surface, but have yet to 
unleash a broader wave of story-telling and reckoning with gender injustice 
in the country.67 In fact, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South 
Africa was compelled to host a set of special women’s hearing in 1997 whereby 
women came forth to present their narratives of racialized gendered violence 
experienced during the course of ‘formal apartheid’(1960–1994). Initial gen-
der-blindness and ad hoc participation, however, constitute a lost “opportunity 
66 Erin Baines and Beth Stewart, “‘I Cannot Accept What I Have Not Done’: Storytelling, 
Gender and Transitional Justice,” Journal of Human Rights Practice 3, no. 3 (November 1, 
2011): 245–63.
67 Annie E. Coombes, “Witnessing History/Embodying Testimony: Gender and Memory in 
Post-Apartheid South Africa,” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 17 (May 
2011): S92–112; Annie E. Coombes, History After Apartheid: Visual Culture and Public 
Memory in a Democratic South Africa (Duke University Press, 2003); Desiree Lewis and 
Gabeba Baderoon, Surfacing: On Being Black and Feminist in South Africa (Wits University 
Press, 2021).
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to capture a more complete picture of the apartheid era” and its nuanced gen-
der-based violence.68 Nomvula Mokonyane, who had been active member of 
uMkhonto we Sizwe(mk) women’s section, stated in her trc testimony that 
“We do not deserve to be given favours, but we believe that women in this 
country also earn, they deserve to be counted amongst those who have played 
a role.”69 This assertion of women’s agency and their right to be equally rec-
ognized in wider public reckoning efforts, such as the trc hearings, remains 
nonetheless a challenge to be addressed within South African society.
Women across the country have continued to organize and mobilize not 
only for recognition of women’s role in the anti-apartheid struggle but also for 
legal prosecution of perpetrators, and for gender-based violences during apart-
heid and contemporary society. These have been initiatives such as a rising 
number of women writing biographies on their experiences in exile camps and 
apartheid, participating in public radio and media platforms and commemo-
rating mass women’s anti-apartheid mobilizing such as the anti-pass march of 
1956.70 It is important, when discussing or analysing instances of gender-based 
violence that scholars yield from the spectacle and expand upon quotidian 
events such as state police harassment and intimidation.
They used to harass us in the morning, during the day or any day of the 
week. As we were preparing ourselves to go to church you would see the Bo-
ers suddenly invading our house. Sometimes they would even find me naked 
and the whole harassment continued up until 1984.71
The words from Lephina’s testimony at the trc Women’s Hearings illustrate 
how gender-based violence was endemic. Appearing before the Truth and 
68 Ayumi Kusafuka, “Truth Commissions and Gender: A South African Case Study,” African 
Journal on Conflict Resolution 9, no. 2 (2009): 45, https://doi.org/10.4314/ajcr.v9i2.52172.
69 South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, “Tokyo Sxwale Nomvula Mokonyane 
- fedtraw Submission,” Human Rights Violations Women’s Hearing (July 29, 1997), South 
Africa, Department of Justice and Constitutional Development, Online, https://www.
justice.gov.za/trc/special/women/mokonyan.htm.
70 N. P. Z. Mbatha, “Narratives of Women Detained in the Kroonstad Prison during the 
Apartheid Era: A Socio-Political Exploration, 1960–1990,” Journal of Contemporary History 
43, no. 1 (2018), https://doi.org/10.18820/24150509/jch43.v1.5; Lakeasha G. Sullivan and 
Garth Stevens, “Through Her Eyes: Relational References in Black Women’s Narratives 
of Apartheid Racism,” South African Journal of Psychology = Suid-Afrikaanse Tydskrif Vir 
Sielkunde 40, no. 4 (December 1, 2010): 414–31.
71 Lephina Zodwa Thobela’s testimony at the Women’s hearing is available at https://www.
justice.gov.za/trc/special/women/thobela.htm, accessed March 31, 2022.
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Reconciliation Commission in 1997, Lephina, who had lost her entire family 
and her dignity, had to witness that the trc did not charge anyone, for the 
harassment or the murder of her daughters and husband. This lack of gen-
dered justice formed the bedrock of South African democracy resulted in 
the contemporary democratic state emulating—to some degree—tactics 
and strategies for justice which do not recognize that gender-based violence 
encompasses more than rape. Pumla Dineo Gqola, gender studies and postco-
lonial scholar, writes that the prevalence of rape, as a form of gender-based vio-
lence is present in South Africa due to not only its colonial history but also due 
to how “rape is not a moment but a language.”72 This is a layered language of 
gendered violence which enables institutions to obscure occurrences of rape. 
Seeking justice for gender-based violence in South Africa for and by women, 
even during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, requires that one not 
only transcends this layered colloquial language of gendered violence but also 
reimagines different strategies and language—which civil society organisa-
tions have continued doing in South Africa. As evidence of the embeddedness 
of this language in contemporary South Africa, Gqola explores instances where 
rape, and other forms of gendered violence, were frequent in South African 
public debate and memory such as the 2006 rape trial of former President and 
anti-apartheid activist Jacob Gedlihlekiyisa Zuma. This trial was highly pub-
licised because of the profile of both complainant and respondent. Yet it was 
also another instance whereby the judicial system attempted to assess the nar-
rative testimony and evidence of Fezekile ‘Khwezi’ Khuzwayo against the back-
drop of this language, which penetrated the courtroom and public arena, and 
concluded that the alleged rape of Fezekile was merely a moment thus acquit-
ting Zuma of charges. Although the outcome of this trial and countless oth-
ers on gendered violence have not been favourable towards victims, they have 
proved to be substantive evidence of the legacy of gendered violence in the 
South African body politic, prior to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 
and how official judicial spaces utilise rigid frameworks to determine justice.
Despite broader official acknowledgement, countless stories have been 
collected in the meantime by independent organisations, which Sindiso 
Bhebhe and Mpho Ngoepe have called “counter-archives.”73 They draw on two 
72 Gqola, Pumla Dineo. Rape: A South African Nightmare. (Johannesburg, South Africa: MF 
Books Joburg, 2015): 22.
73 Sindiso Bhebhe and Mpho Ngoepe, “Building Counter-Archives: Oral History 
Programmes of the Sinomlando Centre and Memory Work in Africa and the South 
African History Archive,” Information Development, March 15, 2021, https://doi.
org/10.1177/0266666921999754; Dale T. McKinley and Ahmed Veriava, Forgotten Voices of 
the Present (South African History Archive, 2009).
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examples, the Sinomlando Centre for Oral History and Memory Work in Africa 
(Sinomlando) and the South African History Archive, to illustrate how these 
organisations are at the forefront of “documenting the stories of the once stig-
matised hiv/aids minority” and the “promotion of social justice among the 
marginalised groups of people in South Africa and beyond.”74 As Pumla Gqola 
states,
While we cannot unmake history, we can directly confront those aspects 
of our collective behaviour that support a rape culture (in post-apartheid 
South Africa) and a manner in which we can begin such confrontation is 
through consciousness of this implicit language of gendered violence and 
its impact on silencing crucial aspects of victims oral narratives/remem-
bering.75
Oral history, however, far from serving only as a tool to record the forgotten 
voices of the past, can also serve to raise awareness about contemporary social 
issues. The untold stories of Syrian victims of war serve as an excellent case in 
point and we will visit their case next.
Narrating Bodily Harm and Social Trauma76
The relentless violence of the Syrian civil war, which has devastated the region 
for over a decade now, cost hundreds of thousands of lives and displaced mil-
lions, with an estimated 1.5 million who found shelter in Lebanon.77 Women, 
who have fled the conflict, are particularly affected. Syrian female refugees 
find themselves in so-called “in-between spaces,” having escaped persecution, 
destruction, and death in the hope of finding shelter, security, and peace.78 
Yet they find themselves in limbo or in imagined safe haven, confronted 
with (in)visible injustice, including challenges associated with their forcible 
74 “Building Counter-Archives: Oral History Programmes of the Sinomlando Centre and 
Memory Work in Africa and the South African History Archive,” 1.
75 Gqola, Pumla Dineo. Rape: A South African Nightmare: 7.
76 This section draws on one of the author’s works: Sarine Karajerjian, “‘Mama Take Us to 
a Country Where There Is No War’: covid-19 and Mental Health Challenges for Syrian 
Refugee Women in Lebanon,” Gender and Development 29, no. 1 (January 2, 2021): 95–109.
77 Omer Karasapan and Sajjad Shah, “Why Syrian Refugees in Lebanon Are a Crisis 
within a Crisis,” Brookings Institution, April 15, 2021, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/
future-development/2021/04/15/why-syrian-refugees-in-lebanon-are-a-crisis-within-a-
crisis/.
78 Arnaud Kurze and Christopher K. Lamont, “Breaking the Transitional Justice Machine: 
Exploring Spatiality, Space Travel, and Inbetween Spaces in Research Practice”.
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displacement and related questions of home and belonging. In addition, the 
Covid-19 pandemic has caused additional strain on these women’s lives.
This case draws on data collected from conversations with over 50 women, 
who visited healthcare facilities in Beirut, Lebanon. Participants were from var-
ious regions, including Deir Ez-Zor, Aleppo, Reef Aleppo, Idlib, and Ar-Raqqa. 
The facilities, however, constituted not only spaces in which refugees would 
be able to receive health-related services, but were also spaces where women 
could bring friends and family members, engage in different social activities 
with other like-minded Syrian women, and attend workshops to acquire pro-
fessional skills. Interviews were conducted based on semi-structured formats, 
allowing interviewees to tell their individual and personal experiences, rather 
than being bound by a series of inflexible questions. During the Covid-19 
lockdown, we stayed in touch with participants using social media, including 
WhatsApp.
The findings of months-long conversations and data collection revealed 
the many obstacles these women are confronted with in their newly adopted 
environment. Some of the challenges include discriminatory policies, voice-
lessness, and distressing public health concerns, aggravated by the pandemic. 
Providing a handful of refugee testimonies, we will portray the plight and daily 
struggles of Syrian women refugees caught in a web of official barriers and who 
are trying to navigate informal channels seeking remedies and dignity through 
their voices and actions.
Asma, a thirty-year old woman who came to Lebanon in 2015, fled from a 
small village in Western Syria near the Iraqi border filled with isis militants. 
“They once stopped me and questioned me about why I was not covered up,” 
she recounts and added, “We fled the day they threatened to take me away.”79 
Her situation in her host country is filled with challenges, she told us: “The 
United Nations supported me with food and rent expenses for a while, but 
then stopped.” Since then, she has been bouncing around from one place to 
another, making ends meet and borrowing money, accumulating debt, and 
eventually getting evicted as she falls behind in her payments. She continues, 
“One day, I was walking with my kids and a car hit me, now my hand hurts. I 
have headaches, and I have not been able to sleep.”80 Asma’s story is shared 
by many Syrian women refugees, struggling to cope with stress, anxiety and 
psychological and physical trauma. Rama, for instance, forty years old, unable 
to work because she needs to take care of her sister-in-law due to a mental 
condition, bears the brunt of the situation with her husband staying at home 
79 Interview with Sarine Karajerijan in Beirut, April 12, 2020.
80 Ibid.
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for long periods of time because of the precarious job market. The constraints 
imposed by the pandemic further aggravate her situation, she explained: “The 
kids study at home via WhatsApp since the schools are closed and classes are 
all online.”81 These individual stories demonstrate the power of informal oral 
history, that is, the opportunity for many of the women to share their experi-
ence with someone who was not within their immediate community of peo-
ple they frequent daily or on a regular basis in these precarious and uncertain 
times. It also provides us further insight on the meaning and role of diverse 
spaces, such as the healthcare centres, which turned out to become temporary, 
albeit ephemeral, spaces to find refuge and a sense of belonging, at least for 
some time.
The Gap between People and Promises82
The concept of gender mainstreaming, mentioned earlier, played a critical role 
during the peace negotiations and transition period of the half-a-century-long 
civil war that ravaged Colombia. Thanks to the advocacy efforts of civil society 
organisations and female activists, over 130 provisions on women and gender 
issues were included in the agreement signed in 2016 by the national govern-
ment and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (farc), the country’s 
largest insurgent group. Throughout the negotiations, women used unscr 
1325 and the Women, Peace and Security (wps) Agenda83 as tools to advocate 
for women’s meaningful participation in every step of the process. Five years 
later, however, many of the promises inked on paper, especially those pertain-
ing to women, are lagging.84
Regardless of the slow and moderate progress, Colombia’s peace process is 
noteworthy for two reasons. First, it underlines the essential role of alternative 
spaces—which we will also elaborate on in the Affect, the Uprising, and the 
Audience—particularly local-driven initiatives that were vital for the success-
ful implementation of the peace process and transitional justice strategies. In 
spite of official peace negotiations, the local and national network of women’s 
81 Interview with Sarine Karajerijan in Beirut, April 14, 2020.
82 This section draws on a study “Towards a Sustainable and Inclusive Peace in Colombia: 
Barriers to Local Women’s Participation in the Implementation of the Peace Agreement,” 
by Bea Ciordia, 2020.
83 The United Nations Security Council Resolution (unscr) 1325 on Women, Peace and 
Security, adopted on October 31, 2000, reaffirms the important role of women in the 
prevention and resolution of conflicts and advocates for their equal participation and full 
involvement in all efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace and security.
84 See for instance reporting by the Washington Office on Latin America, a US-based civil 
society organisation monitoring the peace process, https://colombiapeace.org/, accessed 
June 19, 2021.
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advocacy groups constituted less formal spaces for advocates to connect and 
promote a more gender-inclusive agenda. Women were key in these spaces, 
often taking on the role of mediators, or “brokers” as Sida Liu describes these 
types of interactions, especially with regards to integrating local populations 
into the overall process.85
Some of the findings we discuss below draw on participant observation 
conducted over several workshops in the Colombian region of Cauca between 
November 26–27, 2019. The workshop participants, around 30 women working 
in local non-profit organisations from over a dozen municipalities across the 
region, served as community leaders, peacebuilders, or human rights advocates 
in their respective villages. The encounters were organised by Global Network 
of Women Peacebuilders (gnwp), a US-based ngo, and the Red Nacional de 
Mujeres (rnm), a Colombian network of local organisations promoting wom-
en’s rights and leadership skills.
During these workshops, participants identified key gaps in the implemen-
tation of the peace agreement in their departments and municipalities, as well 
as pinpointed the proliferation of armed groups, including farc dissidents 
and organised crime groups, as a major barrier to peace.86 Drawing on their 
first-hand knowledge and experience, these women also managed to come up 
with a list of concrete actions needed to address such challenges. Their propos-
als, which emphasised the need to strengthen economic empowerment and 
income generation programs for women and to provide security training for 
female activists and political candidates, showcased a thorough understanding 
of the reality of women at the local level—where Colombia’s central authority 
is barely present.
Second, informal women’s networks helped fuel voices at the grassroots 
level, strengthening and empowering many marginalised and underrepre-
sented social groups, including indigenous populations, Afro-Colombian 
women, youth, and former farc combatants. The sharp disconnection that 
exists between Bogotá, the operations centre of the peace agreement, and 
rural areas, prevents these groups—and particularly women—from engaging 
in official negotiations and bringing a much-needed local perspective into the 
table. This divide, however, is not just administrative: most women cannot 
afford to travel across the country due to economic and domestic restraints; 
others are subjugated to the country’s entrenched patriarchal norms, and 
many lack the skills to understand the jargon and legal framework used in gov-
ernment-led negotiations.
85 “Between Social Spaces,” 123.
86 Participant observation by Bea Ciordia, November 26–27, 2019.
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By contrast, informal spaces offer local women the opportunity to use 
their own language and narratives, share their experiences in safe spaces, 
and become part of a network that helps them develop their capacities and 
become politically active in their communities. Only in these spaces can mar-
ginalised women—the most affected by Colombia’s internal war—express 
and cope with their traumatic experiences, leave their role as victims behind, 
and become active agents of peace in the country’s transitional justice process.
The examples of South Africa, Syria and Colombia draw attention to the 
importance of empowering women and underrepresented populations in tran-
sition contexts regardless of ongoing obstacles. It is essential to understand 
the nuanced lived experiences of women in post-conflict and post-authoritar-
ian settings, so that struggles against injustice can be more fully recognized. 
Without this recognition, claims for justice risk being obscured and remaining 
unaddressed; thereby continuing to render women’s voices absent from offi-
cial records, while relegating their experiences during processes of political 
change.
The Affect
The process of political change is “inseparable from feelings of justice.”87 Justice 
is not done, unless it is also seen, felt, and thought to be so. The importance 
of recognising the lived experiences of women, discussed in the Body, draws 
attention to these physiological and psychological aspects of justicecraft. In 
coming to terms with past conflict and strengthening democratic institutions 
in the aftermath of state-sanctioned violence, art plays an important role in 
communicating and creating affective topologies of justice in order to recog-
nise diverse and often competing claims for recognition: art can “provoke us 
to travel into the others’ world, thinking and feeling our way into their uni-
verse.”88 This recognition is essential in order to comprehend, and respond to, 
the claims of people affected—both individually and collectively—by con-
flict and violence.89 In this way, art can play an important role in animating 
and activating the narratives of individuals so that they take on collective 
importance.90 Establishing shared collective visions of the past has become 
87 Eugene McNamee, “Fields of Opportunity,” in The Arts of Transitional Justice: Culture, 
Activism, and Memory after Atrocity, ed. P. Rush and Olivera Simic (London: Springer, 
2014), 22.
88 Mihaela Mihai, “From Hate to Political Solidarity: The Art of Responsibility,” in Hate, 
Politics, Law: Critical Perspectives on Combating Hate (Oxford University Press, 2018), 205.
89 Garnsey, The Justice of Visual Art: Creative State-Building in Times of Political Transition.
90 Eliza Garnsey, “Rewinding and Unwinding: Art and Justice in Times of Political Transition,” 
The International Journal of Transitional Justice, June 5, 2016, https://doi.org/10.1093/ijtj/
ijw010.
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something of “a trope in the discourse of political transition”;91 a discourse, 
which as was discussed in the Island, is circumscribed and tightly mediated by 
epistemological assumptions and gate-keeping.
The use of art in, and about, transition processes has gained more scholarly 
traction in recent years.92 However, important questions remain unanswered, 
especially regarding the relationship between art and feelings of justice, and 
the politicisation of art during collective memory processes. This section 
explores both questions through a case study of the transnational exchange 
of a set of tapestries between the Hall of Justice in Den Bosch, Netherlands, 
and the Constitutional Court of South Africa in Johannesburg—the most sig-
nificant institution to emerge out of the state’s transition from apartheid to 
democracy. Inside these courts hang the same set of tapestries, entitled The 
Benefit of the Doubt, by Marlene Dumas, which were gifted by the artist and the 
Dutch Government to South Africa.
Drawing on participant observation fieldwork conducted at both courts, 
which included 66 interviews with judges, lawyers, artists, and visitors, the sec-
tion analyses how the transnational exchange, content, and location of these 
tapestries and the affective responses which they provoke, have important 
implications for the provision of justice in both contexts, especially in relation 
to post-apartheid political transition. This fieldwork facilitates the recognition 
of the situated knowledge, and the claims being made and received by stake-
holders, drawing attention to the narratives and practices of political change—
the justicecraft—in these contexts (as discussed in our introduction).
Two key arguments emerge out of this case study. First, that artistic inter-
ventions offer alternative spaces of justice. The significance of artistic interven-
tions exists not only in their creation, but in the different affective responses 
they provoke which change with the passage of time and space. Second, that 
cultural diplomacy is an emerging spatial frontier of justice during times of 
political change, one which underscores the importance of taking affect seri-
ously and recognising its political effects. The section proceeds with a visual 
analysis of the tapestries, followed by a comparative analysis of the tapestries 
at each court.
91 Ruti G. Teitel, Globalizing Transitional Justice (Oxford University Press, 2015), 1.
92 See for instance Sanja Bahun, “Transitional Justice and the Arts: Reflections on the Field,” 
Theorizing Transitional Justice, 2015, 153–66; Vikki Bell, The Art of Post-Dictatorship: Ethics 
and Aesthetics in Transitional Argentina (Routledge, 2014); Kurze and Lamont, New Critical 
Spaces in Transitional Justice: Gender, Art, and Memory; Peter D. Rush and Olivera Simić, 
eds., The Arts of Transitional Justice: Culture, Activism, and Memory after Atrocity (Springer, 
2014).
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The Tapestry
The Benefit of the Doubt (Figs. 1–2) comprises three large horizontal tapestries, 
which depict eight close-up human faces, surrounding a central child-like 
figure who is intended to represent liberty.93 In contrast to the convention of 
liberty being portrayed as a heroic woman leading the people, Dumas’ figure 
of liberty appears to be a young girl poised in a shrugging posture, suggesting 
rhetorical uncertainty about what is at stake in the image, and indeed, inside 
the courtroom(s). This “young girl in the middle is the only one with arms and 
hands, as if she is the real judge of Fate saying Yes… or…, No, or what will it 
be?!”94 The burden of legal and pictorial responsibility weighs heavy on the 
shoulders of this child, subverting the power of seniority in the context of the 
legal system.
figure 1 Installation view of Marlene Dumas, The Benefit of the Doubt, inside the Hall of 
Justice, Den Bosch, Netherlands. Tapestry triptych: 2 hangings 1075 x 198 cm, 1 
hanging 742 x 198 cm.
 courtesy of marlene dumas, photograph by peter cox.
93 Marlene Dumas and Emma Bedford, Marlene Dumas: Intimate Relations, vol. 106 (Roma 
Publications, 2007), 39.
94 Dumas in Francois Lion-Cachet, Thina Miya, and Catherine Kennedy, “Marlene Dumas: 
The Benefit of the Doubt,” Art and Justice: A Constitutional Court Art Collection Series 
(Constitutional Court South Africa, 2020), 12.
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The eight abstracted faces present a spectrum of feeling, in which doubt—
as the title suggests—is implicated in a narrative of ambiguity about guilt 
and innocence. The facial expressions appear as a mixture between austere, 
resigned, and pensive; closed eyes, direct stares, and sidelong glances are dis-
concerting in their uncertainty: the faces “evoke an immediate and power-
ful sense of responsibility towards these unknown strangers… [but they are 
also] completely decontextualised and therefore provide no starting point 
from which any concrete legal or moral response can be formulated.”95 Doubt 
emerges from the gap between the faces being represented and the law under 
which they are implied subjects,96 not only linguistically through the reference 
of the artwork’s title to the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, but 
also spatially by virtue of hanging in the context of the courts.
figure 2 Marlene Dumas, The Benefit of the Doubt (triptych, in situ at the Constitutional 
Court in 2020), 1998, fibre, 1980 x 10750 mm (x2) and 1980 x 7420 mm (x1). 
Constitutional Court Art Collection (ccac). Donated by the artist and the Dutch 
government in 2001. Courtesy of the Constitutional Court Trust, Stacey Vorster and 
the artist.
 photographs by akona kenqu © stacey vorster.
95 Wessel Le Roux, “Designs of the Times: The Remaking of South African and Dutch 
Courtroom Architecture during the 1990s,” Fundamina: A Journal of Legal History 13, no. 2 
(2007): 64.
96 Garnsey, The Justice of Visual Art: Creative State-Building in Times of Political Transition, 
107.
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The Courts
The significance of The Benefit of the Doubt exists not only in its creation and 
symbolism, but in the different affective responses it provokes hanging inside 
courts in the Netherlands and South Africa. Originally created for the Hall of 
Justice in the Dutch town of Den Bosch, The Benefit of the Doubt is one of 16 
tapestries by multiple artists which adorn the walls of the numerous court-
rooms.97 Built in 1998, the Hall of Justice houses a district court which deals 
with administrative, civil, criminal, and family matters, as well as a court of 
appeal. Employing several hundred judges and staff, the Hall of Justice is a 
mammoth legal complex frequented by large numbers of people on a daily 
basis.
The Benefit of the Doubt (Fig. 1) physically and psychologically looms large 
over the small courtroom in which it hangs. The oversized figure of liberty 
presides over the judge’s bench while the huge faces float above the heads of 
the court’s attendees. Described by people who frequent the courtroom, as 
“monsters”, “dead bodies”, and “skeletons”,98 these figures appear to create a 
somewhat sombre atmosphere; an atmosphere which has a direct impact on 
the operation of the court. Originally intended to be used as a courtroom for 
family law matters, the decision was taken to move family law matters into 
another courtroom as the court staff received complaints that the tapestries 
“really scared the children”99 who attended the courtroom; an issue which was 
felt to compound the trauma already experienced by some children who were 
involved in family law matters.100
In 2001, the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Wim Kok, formally gifted 
a duplicate set of The Benefit of the Doubt tapestries to the Constitutional 
Court of South Africa. This diplomatic exchange arose after Dumas—who was 
born and raised in South Africa and moved to the Netherlands in the mid-
1970s—met with Justice Albie Sachs during a talk on South Africa’s Truth 
and Reconciliation Commission in the Hague.101 Opened in 2004, the new 
Constitutional Court building is a unique space by international compari-
son, not only because it has transformed the site of several notorious prisons, 
97 See Patrick Spijkerman, ed., Extenuating Circumstances: Wall Hangings in the Hall of 
Justice’s-Hertogenbosch (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 1998).
98 Interviews between Eliza Garnsey and judge, court officers, court staff, and public 
prosecutor, Den Bosch 2017.
99 Court officer, interview with Eliza Garnsey, Den Bosch 2017.
100 Interviews between Eliza Garnsey and judge, court officer, police officer, and public 
prosecutor, Den Bosch 2017.
101 Lion-Cachet, Miya, and Kennedy, “Marlene Dumas: The Benefit of the Doubt,” 7.
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but because it also incorporates artworks into the fabric of the building, and 
houses a large visual art collection developed by the court.
Inside the Constitutional Court, The Benefit of the Doubt hangs at ceiling 
height in the public art gallery (Fig. 2). Soaring above the heads of viewers and 
shrouded in slightly dimmed lighting, the faces invite contemplation: “they 
gaze down upon us as if it is us, the viewers, who are cast into the role of judge, 
who are called upon to enter the mind of an arbiter, recusing the truth before 
making judgments about the future of people’s lives.”102 The three panels are 
separated, hung opposite each other, which gives the impression that the faces 
are in conversation and also has the effect of subsuming the figure of liberty, 
who is simultaneously tempered by the presence of other artworks. Unlike in 
Den Bosch where the tapestries were perceived as ghoulish, something other 
than human, in the space of the Constitutional Court, The Benefit of the Doubt 
is perceived to reflect the importance of humanity, both in the moral respon-
sibility of humans to each other, and in the creative energy of being human: “I 
think when you walk in and you see you know the tapestries and the pillars… 
every time I walk in there I am overwhelmed by what wonderful things we cre-
ate.”103 The symbolic power originates neither solely in the artwork, nor in the 
courtrooms, but in the relationship between the two, and the affective space 
this relationship catalyses.
The physical space of the courts, and the different ways in which the tap-
estries are exhibited in the Netherlands and South Africa, directly affects the 
interpretations of The Benefit of the Doubt and the feelings it provokes in view-
ers. Therein lies the significance of affect. While the courts are simultaneously 
physical sites and manifestations of legal institutions, the artistic intervention 
in these contexts creates new affective spaces in which, like the other sites dis-
cussed in this article, what is permissible, knowable, seeable, and doable in 
relation to justicecraft becomes expanded or constrained. The Benefit of the 
Doubt is particularly significant for the political relationship it embodies. The 
artwork is embedded in the political structures of Dutch colonial rule and their 
influence on successive South African governments: “we’ve seen from the old 
history we [the Netherlands and South Africa] have a connection. So, maybe 
that’s the reason why these monsters [the figures in the tapestries] are also 
in Johannesburg.”104 The tapestries linger inside the Constitutional Court: it is 
almost as if the Dutch government is—as the artwork’s title suggests—asking 
102 Law clerk, interview with Eliza Garney, Johannesburg, 2014.
103 Art committee member, interview with Eliza Garnsey, Johannesburg, 2014.
104 Court officer, interview with Eliza Garnsey, Johannesburg, 2017.
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for the benefit of the doubt. International relations seep into the Court through 
Dumas’ artwork, implicating the deliverance of justice in South Africa in a 
wider political circle;105 one which people at the Constitutional Court of South 
Africa were acutely aware of, while in Den Bosch was largely unknown.106
Without art, justice during periods of political change will fail to fully 
comprehend and respond to the injustices which are the long-term causes of 
conflict, rendering that change uncertain. The justicecraft highlighted by The 
Benefit of the Doubt shows how artistic interventions can provide alternative 
spaces of justice by engaging different affective responses, both at individual 
and national levels; responses which, as the next section highlights, can have 
pervasive consequences.
Part 3. Spatial Struggles
In our previous section, we have looked at practitioner’s relation and reaction 
to art during situated struggles. Here we continue to unravel the image of tran-
sitional justice practitioners, often portrayed as rational experts with technical 
knowledge. This portrayal calls for a critical reflection on how legitimacy forms 
in terms of existing knowledge and the creation of new knowledge in the 
field. Who gets to claim legitimacy? How is it perceived and by whom? And, 
ultimately, who approves it and, what are the consequences of these power 
dynamics? The Island and the Map utilise notions of space to interrogate how 
knowledge is produced and situated, and advance new methodological inter-
ventions to uncover where justice-processes unfold.
The Island
Terms of transition provide conceptual infrastructures not only as ideas but 
also as part of the protocols or practices that hold the world up. To attend 
to the terms of transition is to forge an imaginary for managing the mean-
while.107
105 Garnsey, The Justice of Visual Art: Creative State-Building in Times of Political Transition, 
107.
106 Fieldwork interviews by Eliza Garnsey, Johannesburg and Den Bosch, 2014 and 2017.
107 Lauren Berlant, “The Commons: Infrastructures for Troubling Times*,” Environment and 
Planning D: Society & Space 34, no. 3 (June 1, 2016): 393–419.
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The Transitional Justice Island108 is a distinct global space109 that shapes (or 
aims at shaping) the terms of transition, to manage the meanwhile, after (or 
sometimes in the midst of) violence and repression. It is inhabited by stake-
holders and powerbrokers in the field. We can think about struggles on the 
Island as equally situated—in this distinct global space—as struggles in other 
spaces. This understanding differs from perspectives that see the Island as 
enraptured from ‘local contexts’ and insensitive to situated struggles. What 
makes the Island distinct therefore are its inhabitants, the knowledge they 
share and the language that is spoken on the Island, and certain practices, as 
well as a sense of community.110 The Island and those who inhabit it have a 
particular identity. This identity builds on particular understandings of justice 
after violence and repression, and political change, as well as a (more or less) 
common understanding of how to work towards this understanding of justice 
and change. Hence, Islanders craft justice through this particular understand-
ing of how justice should look like and how to reach it.
Admittance to the Island
I am sitting in a café in a suburb of Tunis, having Lunch with someone I 
thought to be an Islander. As it turned out while we were talking about 
their involvement in the transitional justice process, as someone involved 
in their own situated struggles, they were struggling to reach the distinct 
global space that is the Island, to become an Islander: “All the experts come 
from [the Island]. We can’t be experts here. […] But it’s us who know best the 
country and the context. […] The frameworks are too rigid.”111
108 The Island in this article is a symbolic site. As such, the notion of the Island does not aim 
to compete with social scientific concepts, such as institutions, as institutions can be 
part of the Island. Rather, the Island can be understood as a figuration: it forms through 
interdependent and dynamic actors and power relations; has structural features, 
representing a particular order; and is shaped by the transmission of knowledge (see 
Norbert Elias [1986] 2006, 100–102).
109 Sally Engle Merry, “Constructing a Global Law-Violence against Women and the 
Human Rights System,” Law & Social Inquiry: Journal of the American Bar Foundation 
28, no. 4 (2003): 968; Sally Engle Merry, Human Rights and Gender Violence: Translating 
International Law into Local Justice (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2006).
110 Michal Ben-Josef Hirsch, “Agents of Truth and Justice: Truth Commissions and the 
Transitional Justice Epistemic Community,” in Rethinking Ethical Foreign Policy: 
Pitfalls, Possibilities and Paradoxes, ed. David Chandler and Volker Heins (London UK: 
Routledge, 2006), 184–205; Jamie Rowen, Searching for Truth in the Transitional Justice 
Movement (Cambridge University Press, 2017); Briony Jones, “The Performance and 
Persistence of Transitional Justice and Its Ways of Knowing Atrocity,” Cooperation and 
Conflict 56, no. 2 (June 2021): 163–80.
111 Personal interview by Mariam Salehi, Tunis, 2016.
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If we see the Island as inhabited by stakeholders and powerbrokers, there are 
several pathways to gain access to the Island. These pathways are professional 
and non-professional, but the non-professional pathways are mostly inter-
woven with the professional ones. There is a lighthouse at the centre of the 
Island that shows the way, sending out signals of how to struggle for justice 
and change. Thus, justicecraft on the Island is mostly done through profes-
sional work, but the non-professional pathway to the Island is open to those 
who craft their struggle for justice in a way that fits with the professional path-
way. Thus, to gain access, certain credentials are necessary. For some, such as 
politicians or organised, well-networked civil society, these credentials may be 
easier to acquire than for others, such as grassroots organisations or less insti-
tutionalised movements. The latter, however, might also not be interested in 
getting access to the Island because they may not see it as conducive to their 
struggle for their claims to be recognised, or even fear that the Island’s efforts 
lead to diversion from them.112 As we can learn from our reflection in the sec-
tion on Affect, the Island’s justicecraft may evoke different affective responses 
and not feel like justice to them.
Admission to the Island also requires epistemological buy-in. Therefore, 
those who want to gain access to the Island need to acquire particular knowl-
edge. This requirement of epistemological buy-in also has a gatekeeping 
function: those who think and ‘know’ otherwise may not be admitted. They 
therefore may not have access to political processes underway on the Island or 
being shaped by Islanders. And they may lack currency to do business on the 
Island or with Islanders.
Then again, it is important to keep in mind that not everyone necessarily 
wants to access the Island and wants to know and be known in a certain way. 
Further, there may not be an interest in defining knowing and being always in 
relation to the Island.113 As our section on the Audience shows, justicecraft also 
takes place in other spaces that are often, but not unintentionally, left out of 
the discussion.
The Political Economy of the Island
Politics and the economy of the Island are intertwined. There are economic 
incentives to craft the Island in a certain way. Public and private donors, such 
112 Corinna Mullin and Ian Patel, “Contesting Transitional Justice as Liberal Governance in 
Revolutionary Tunisia,” Conflict and Society 2, no. 1 (June 1, 2016): 104–24.
113 John M. Hobson and Alina Sajed, “Navigating Beyond the Eurofetishist Frontier of 
Critical ir Theory: Exploring the Complex Landscapes of Non-Western Agency,” 
International Studies Review 19, no. 4 (July 29, 2017): 547–72.
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as governments, international organisations or private foundations choose to 
fund the Island for several purposes that can be summarised as ideas, inter-
ests, institutions, and information.114 Island politics may be shaped by the 
various interests of different institutions (either the donors themselves or 
those funded by them), especially since many of the Islanders work for them. 
Islanders, therefore, are “not a homogenous group, meaning [that they] do 
not all rely on the same opinions and preferences.”115 Their push for different 
ideas, expanding the “universe of possibilities for action”,116 may be considered 
a situated struggle over visions for justice on the Island. Since the Island is a 
‘knowledge hub’, they also “shape the flow of information”117 that may influ-
ence situated struggles elsewhere.
These funding logics also mean that there is potentially competition over 
funds between the Island and other (neighbouring) islands. When the Island’s 
centre was developed, with the founding of the International Center for 
Transitional Justice in the early 2000s, there were concerns that these efforts 
that came along with strong financial support would draw away funding from 
other islands, in particular from the human rights community, as well as from 
local efforts and organisations, eventually replacing them,118 respectively 
pushing them to the periphery of the Island.
However, the same concerns may apply to the Island as well, when other 
islands and their ideas, institutions, and knowledge become more popular 
with donors. As the funders’ ideas or interests move on, institutions develop, 
and states of information change, the inhabitants of the Island may find them-
selves in the situation that they need to reframe their work to receive funding 
for it:
I am sitting at the centre of the Island, having a chat with an Islander about 
their current work and future plans. They tell me that they need to frame 
their work in cve/pve terms, because this is where the funding currently 
is.119 On a different day around the same time, I am talking to an Islander in 
114 Paige Arthur, “Why Do Donors Choose to Fund Transitional Justice?,” in Transitional 
Justice, International Assistance, and Civil Society: Missed Connections, ed. Paige Arthur 
and Christalla Yakinthou (Cambridge University Press, 2018), 209–41.
115 Mariam Salehi, “Trying Just Enough or Promising Too Much? The Problem-Capacity-
Nexus in Tunisia’s Transitional Justice Process,” Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 
February 22, 2021, 9.
116 Arthur, “Why Do Donors Choose to Fund Transitional Justice?,” 215.
117 Salehi, Transitional Justice in Process: Plans and Politics in Tunisia.
118 Rowen, Searching for Truth in the Transitional Justice Movement, 35.
119 Personal conversation with Mariam Salehi, New York 2019.
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a more political position. They tell me that they were advised to frame their 
work in terms of religious freedom because the responsible office for that 
subject would be willing to channel money to transitional justice work.120
Leaving the Island
I am sitting in an office at the very centre of the Island. I am here to conduct 
an interview with an Islander who works in an important function for the 
transitional justice process I am researching. After introducing ourselves, 
but before we start talking more about my research topic, my interlocutor 
tells me that they are leaving the Island. Not only the organisation they are 
currently working for, which is at the centre of the Island, but completely. 
Throughout our conversation, they return frequently to their dissatisfac-
tion with how things are done on the Island. They complain that concepts 
and processes were too rigid, that there was little room for flexibility and 
for navigating actual politics. They blame the institutional structures and 
other Islanders who would uphold these rigid ideas, instead of working out 
solutions that would better fit political realities. In their opinion, this rigidity 
wouldn’t help the situated struggles they were supposed to support. They 
were frustrated that they couldn’t change how things were done at the Is-
land.121 A few days later, I had a conversation with another Islander, who 
had moved on the Island, away from the centre and more towards the outer 
areas, and we discussed the move. In their opinion, leaving may be the right 
choice if one is frustrated with how things are done at the Island. But one 
should not talk badly about the centre of the Island when moving because 
this wouldn’t help the struggle either.122
The above conversations tell us about power relations and struggles on the 
Island, the (im)possibility of change and how Islanders deal with these situa-
tions. They reveal two different understandings of appropriate pathways if one 
is frustrated with how things are done on the Island: voicing frustration, trying 
to do things differently and leaving if unsuccessful or moving away from the 
centre. They also imply an impossibility of change, for different reasons, albeit 
with the same result of leaving (the centre) of the Island. The first exemplifies 
a failed struggle for change, while the second example points to a different way 
of navigating institutions by moving away around on the Island. It also shows 
120 Personal interview by Mariam Salehi, Washington, DC, 2019.
121 Personal interview by Mariam Salehi, New York, 2015.
122 Personal conversation with Mariam Salehi, New York, 2015.
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us that once you’ve lived on the Island, even if you leave it shapes the work you 
do afterwards.
A third pathway would be to work towards change on the Island, not only 
at the peripheries, but also at the centre. One can also observe frictions on 
the Island123 and increasing reflections on how to do things.124 This may, on 
the one hand, be due to new inhabitants arriving and old ones leaving. On the 
other hand, Islanders may learn and acquire new knowledge, there may be 
a change in power relations on the Island and/or funders’ ideas, interests or 
information may change that will influence practices on the Island.
Towards an Archipelago of Justicecraft
If we conceive of the transitional justice Island as a distinct global space with 
its own rules, practices, and relevant knowledge, and struggles on the Island as 
themselves situated, there may be the need for changing how we criticise the 
Island and its practices.125 Therefore, critique may not be based on, or directed 
at, an absolute or monolithic understanding of justice and how to struggle for 
change. First, although the Island is a distinct global space shaped by particu-
lar ideas and knowledge, if we assume that Islanders are homogenous and that 
there are no struggles on the Island, we would misrepresent it. Second, even 
if we distil a dominant logic of justice and how to achieve it on the Island, we 
should not necessarily take it for granted and reproduce it in our analysis.126
Rather, we may critically inquire about relationships with other islands. 
Sometimes, the insular perspective may lead to the situation that Islanders 
lose sight of other islands. Thus, they may think that they need to do everything 
on their own, leading to ‘mission creep’ and the expansion of mandates of 
transitional justice “without any sort of functional analysis to suggest that 
the measures can indeed perform the ever-growing functions attributed to 
them.”127 However, justice cannot only be crafted on and through the Island. 
It can also be crafted in Bodies, Affects, Uprisings, and Audiences. Thus, as the 
123 See for instance Salehi, “Trying Just Enough or Promising Too Much? The Problem-
Capacity-Nexus in Tunisia’s Transitional Justice Process,” 9.
124 Virginie Ladisch and Christalla Yakinthou, “Cultivated Collaboration in Transitional 
Justice Practice and Research: Reflections on Tunisia’s Voices of Memory Project,” The 
International Journal of Transitional Justice 14, no. 1 (March 1, 2020): 80–101.
125 Dustin N. Sharp, “What Would Satisfy Us? Taking Stock of Critical Approaches to 
Transitional Justice,” The International Journal of Transitional Justice 13, no. 3 (August 14, 
2019): 570–89.
126 Salehi, “A Processual Framework for Analysing Liberal Policy Interventions in Conflict 
Contexts.”.
127 Pablo De Greiff, “Thinking Big About Transitional Justice,” Arbeitsgemeinschaft Frieden 
Und Entwicklung September 27 (2018).
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Uprising shows, it may be necessary to de-centre the Island and we suggest 
thinking about situated struggles for change—and justice—as an archipelago 
of justicecraft.
Olúfémi Táíwò teaches us to see experience as a bridge rather than a wall.128 
This perspective suggests that it would be beneficial for these struggles if there 
were bridges from the Island to other islands. But “inter-island transfer [and 
communication across difference] cannot be assumed”,129 it has to be worked 
out. Lighthouses need to show several pathways to the Island (and not only 
one). Moreover, the Island should not only establish options for others to 
reach the Island, but pathways should be multidirectional. Islanders could 
use the bridges—or for islands farther away—sail over to establish connec-
tions with others also grappling with questions of political change, with the 
terms of transition and with managing the meanwhile.130 One step would be 
to map the archipelago of justicecraft and thereby recognise different signals 
lighthouses on other islands send about how they contest global injustice and 
imagine “alternative organisations of the world.”131 Mapping the archipelago 
may also be necessary to recognise relational organisation of oppression and 
resistance.132 An additional important step would be to engage (and concep-
tualise) the sea, the ‘in-between’ that connects and divides, and which has to 
be navigated.133 We will now address the broader question of mapping these 
diverse processes of justicecraft.
The Map
In our previous sections we explored the concept of justicecraft, underlining 
justice-driven challenges during political change, with the goal, among oth-
ers, to shed light on alternative ways to create space(s) for more equality or 
representation when seeking to address injustice and wrongdoings. Here, our 
focus turns to initial efforts of capturing and mapping alternative practices by 
relying on techniques and tools based on the craft of cartography. In the con-
text of justice-driven struggles evoked earlier, multi-layered mapmaking rep-
resents a valuable resource to advance justicecraft, both methodologically and 
conceptually.
128 Olúfémi O. Táíwò, “Being-in-the-Room Privilege: Elite Capture and Epistemic Deference,” 
The Philosopher 108, no. 4 (2020), https://www.thephilosopher1923.org/essay-taiwo.
129 Paul Carter, Decolonising Governance: Archipelagic Thinking (Routledge, 2018), 23.
130 Salehi, “Trying Just Enough or Promising Too Much? The Problem-Capacity-Nexus in 
Tunisia’s Transitional Justice Process,” 12.
131 Valdez, Transnational Cosmopolitanism: Kant, Du Bois, and Justice as a Political Craft, 1.
132 See Aleksandr Solzhenit͡syn, The Gulag Archipelago (Random House, 2003).
133 See Carter, Decolonising Governance: Archipelagic Thinking, 32.
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Drawing and creating maps today differs substantially from earlier crafts-
manship thanks to technological advances. Current geospatial data analysis 
software integrates a multitude of datasets, creating various data layers on a 
digital map. As a result, it is able to visualise data that is not only geocoded, but 
it also provides complementary details on the context, conditions, and the area 
in question, including demographic information for the analysed locations. 
Methodological debates in transitional justice studies are far from being new. 
Rather, the field has witnessed the occurrence of a variety of waves in which 
scholars, practitioners and advocates discussed what type of general roadmap 
to pursue to address pressing questions of injustice, human rights abuse, and 
political violence in a variety of settings across the globe and how to best ana-
lyse these questions. Some of the earlier inquiries circled around the problem 
of assessment, notably in view of growing strategy measures implemented by 
international actors, government institutions and grassroots organisations on 
the ground.134 This initial wave was driven by a combination of bridging the 
“pracademic” divide to fuel tangible tools for effective policy implementation 
in the field and to counter “popular conceptions (or misconceptions) of the 
benefits and drawbacks of different models and on romanticised notions of 
their achievements.”135 These scholarly discussions eventually expanded on 
questions about the value of big data and large-N studies, particularly because 
research remained highly case study oriented and qualitative in nature.136 Yet 
Brandon Stewart and Eric Wiebelhaus-Brahm have argued that the quanti-
tative turn in transitional justice has led to studies that “have often failed to 
provide compelling theoretical or empirical bases for a causal relationship 
between tj mechanisms and dependent variables such as democracy and 
human rights.”137 While quantitative analysis in tj has the ability to produce 
valuable findings, “greater methodological care is needed.”138 Innovative and 
transdisciplinary work on a variety of post-conflict and post-authoritarian 
issues have fuelled new debates in the field in recent years. Our study comple-
ments and builds on methodological advances and innovative ways to capture 
134 Hugo Van der Merwe, Victoria Baxter, and Audrey R. Chapman, eds., Assessing the 
Impact of Transitional Justice: Challenges for Empirical Research (Washington, DC: 
United States Institute of Peace Press, 2009).
135 Van der Merwe, Baxter, and Chapman, 4.
136 Tricia D. Olsen, Leigh A. Payne, and Andrew G. Reiter, “Transitional Justice in the World, 
1970–2007: Insights from a New Dataset,” Journal of Peace Research 47, no. 6 (November 
1, 2010): 803–9.
137 “The Quantitative Turn in Transitional Justice Research: What Have We Learned about 
Impact?,” Transitional Justice Review (July 5, 2017), 99.
138 Ibid.
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trends affected by changing conditions. Digital methods, including geomap-
ping, have allowed us to visualise evolving behavioural patterns over time and 
space.139 Here we present a pilot study of a map using data visualisation to cap-
ture alternative struggles based on art-related transitional justice practices. We 
compare this data across time and space to mechanisms, including interna-
tional human rights trials and truth commissions, which have been discussed 
in the traditional literature. Below, we engage in a brief but critical discussion 
on mapmaking, lay out the design and methodology, and provide reflections 
on limitations and challenges.
Virtual Mapmaking as Justicecraft
One of the basic tenets of quantitative research is the ability to aggregate data 
in view of generalizability.140 However, generalizable trends do not necessarily 
promote a deeper and more accurate understanding of complex transitional 
justice processes. On the contrary, the invaluable insights of rich case studies 
in combination with comparative case analysis—to assess lessons learned and 
to scrutinise variation across cases—has led some of the initial advocates of 
large-N studies to question the quantitative push in the field. These method-
ological conundrums beg the question of whether it is possible to integrate 
larger data sets yet still maintain detailed and case-oriented data in the over-
all set? Innovative data visualisation technology and geo-mapping tools offer 
promising solutions. They allow us to unearth dynamic interactions between 
actors, across contexts, and varying conditions while still maintaining detailed 
local case study data. Past research emphasises the importance of work on 
alternative transitional justice mechanisms to complement and contextualise 
insights from existing traditional literature.141 As a result, our project introduces 
139 For research relying on geo mapping to examine a variety of social issues, see for 
instance John Pickles, A History of Spaces: Cartographic Reason, Mapping and the 
Geo-Coded World (Routledge, 2012); Nazgol Bagheri, “Mapping Women in Tehran’s 
Public Spaces: A Geo-Visualization Perspective,” Gender, Place and Culture: A Journal 
of Feminist Geography 21, no. 10 (November 26, 2014): 1285–1301; Peter Marcus 
Kristensen, “Revisiting the ‘American Social Science’—Mapping the Geography of 
International Relations,” International Studies Perspectives 16, no. 3 (August 2, 2015): 
246–69; Cornelia Caragea et al., “Mapping Moods: Geo-Mapped Sentiment Analysis 
during Hurricane Sandy,” in ISCRAM (Citeseer, 2014), https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/
viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.432.8700&rep=rep1&type=pdf; Yuri Queiroz Abreu Torres 
and Lucia Maria Sá Antunes Costa, “Digital Narratives: Mapping Contemporary Use 
of Urban Open Spaces through Geo-Social Data,” Procedia Environmental Sciences 22 
(January 1, 2014): 1–11.
140 Brian D. Haig, The Philosophy of Quantitative Methods (Oxford University Press, 2018).
141 For prior research see for instance, Arnaud Kurze, “#WarCrimes #PostConflictJustice 
#Balkans: Youth, Performance Activism and the Politics of Memory,” The International 
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a large-N case study to capture and map art-inspired transitional justice prac-
tices spanning over several decades and across various world regions.
Despite our ability to capture less visible phenomena thanks to the above 
technological advances, we are conscious of limitations associated with map-
making. Engaging in the art of cartography requires being aware of underlying 
power relations when drawing maps.142 Cartography cannot merely be seen as 
a technical field. It also calls for a critical discussion on explicit and implicit 
power dynamics inherent to mapmaking. While critical cartography rose to 
prominence in the 1990s, criticising power imbalances native to the craft, 
recent debates have questioned the potential of emancipatory power in the 
field.143 According to Annette Kim, the immediate subjects of a mapping pro-
ject should ideally be integrated in the process.144 Efforts to capture truth-seek-
ing initiatives across the United States in recent years are an excellent example 
of this goal and illustrate the challenges associated with grounding work in 
knowledge, experience and representation.145 This pilot project embraces a 
holistic perspective that “sets out a roadmap for the readers, drawing attention 
to the landmarks” and that helps readers to situate the work into a broader 
scholarly context.146 By focusing on new actors and disclosing less visible 
themes we also shed light on “new contestations, tensions and constellations 
of power,” which help us reframe the politics of justice.147
Journal of Transitional Justice 10, no. 3 (2016): 451–70; Arnaud Kurze, “Youth Activism, 
Art, and Transitional Justice,” in New Critical Spaces in Transitional Justice: Gender, Art, 
and Memory, ed. Arnaud Kurze and Christopher Lamont (Bloomington, IN: Indiana 
University Press, 2019), 63–85; Arnaud Kurze, “Seeking New Metaphors: Gender 
Identities in Tunisia and Lebanon,” in Arab Spring: Modernity, Identity and Change, 
ed. Eid Mohamed and Dalia Fahmy (Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2020), 
207–33; Aymen Belhadj and Arnaud Kurze, “Whose Justice? Youth, Reconciliation and 
the State in Post-Ben Ali Tunisia,” Journal of Human Rights 20, no. 3, (March 29, 2021): 
356–372.
142 Jeremy W. Crampton and Jonh Krygier, “An Introduction to Critical Cartography,” 
November 20, 2018, http://beu.extension.unicen.edu.ar/xmlui/handle/123456789/359.
143 Annette M. Kim, “Critical Cartography 2.0: From ‘participatory Mapping’ to Authored 
Visualizations of Power and People,” Landscape and Urban Planning 142 (October 1, 
2015): 216.
144 Kim, 216.
145 See for instance the interactive map by the Mary Hoch Center for Reconciliation at 
George Mason University, https://www.mapcustomizer.com/map/US%20Truth%20
and%20Reconciliation%20Initiatives%202020, accessed June 25, 2021.
146 S. Basu, P. Kirby, and L. J. Shepherd, “Women, Peace and Security: A Critical Cartography,” 
in New Directions in Women, Peace and Security, ed. Soumita Basu, Paul Kirby, and Laura 
J. Shepherd (Bristol, United Kingdom: Bristol University Press, 2020), 2.
147 Basu, Kirby, and Shepherd, 2.
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Map Design and Data Limitations
Our mapping project captures some of the struggles mentioned earlier in this 
article, concentrating on art-inspired transitional justice practices. While our 
exploration of different spaces illustrated the breadth of justicecraft engage-
ments, this pilot-sized cartographic analysis homes in on a specific category 
of mechanisms. It compares alternative forms of transitional justice to estab-
lished post-conflict and post-authoritarian practices, including truth com-
missions and international human rights trials. The data for this analysis was 
retrieved from international newspaper sources in the LexisNexis Uni archive 
and comprises cases from around the world from early 2000 until present. 
Additional data was retrieved from the website of the Transitional Justice 
Research Collaborative, notably for details on transitional justice mechanisms 
discussed in traditional scholarship within the field.148 Alternative transi-
tional justice mechanisms for this project include any instances captured by 
LexisNexis Uni text searches on ‘art AND transitional justice.’ Date and location 
for each incident mentioned in a newspaper source were recorded for visual-
isation purposes. Multiple locations per incident were possible to indicate the 
depth of the media coverage. For example, if a national newspaper reported an 
incident abroad, two separate locations for the same incident were recorded 
in our database. The database contains 762 cases for art-inspired transitional 
justice practices, 53 truth commission-related entries, and 289 cases associated 
with international trials.149
Some of the initial limitations in creating the research design and protocols 
for this project include issues inherent to source materials, data selection, and 
visualisation tools. Although the LexisNexis Uni news archive provides homog-
enous data points to create a uniform database structure, the data source 
carries other limitations. First, editorial practices in each newspaper source 
often exclude or overlook a large number of localised practices by grassroots 
organisations and individual victim groups. Only newsworthy stories appear 
in print, limiting the number of media-relevant alternative transitional justice 
practices. In addition, the search tool functionality in the public archive of 
LexisNexis Uni is based on a keyword search created by archivists who are not 
specialised in transitional justice studies, thus relying on a keyword vocabulary 
appropriate for general audiences. Last, although the selected data visualis-
ation software offers a variety of functions, we performed only a very limited 
mapping in our project. Additional coding with more nuanced categories of 
148 See website at https://transitionaljusticedata.com/, accessed on June 30, 2021.
149 For methodological details and codification protocols consult one of the authors, 
Arnaud Kurze, of this study.
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practices, actors, locations, and time periods offer room for future interpreta-
tion and complementary data analysis of the original study design.
The Mapmaking, Challenges and Takeaways
The initial cartography was performed with ArcGIS Online and uploaded on 
a publicly accessible server.150 ArcGIS Online is a server-based software for 
geo-mapping and data-driven visualisation of multiple layers in a single map. 
The current map provides viewers with the option of selecting different layers 
with types of transitional justice mechanism, including art-inspired practices, 
truth commission, and trials. The map contains data from 1990 until the pres-
ent with newspaper data starting as early as 2001.151 The current visualisation 
includes pop-ups for each incident, allowing viewers to click on locations on 
the map and learn more about the type of event and the time of occurrence. 
The objective of this initial interactive map is to provide an overview of art-re-
lated transitional justice practices from a comparative perspective. The pres-
ent map aggregates incidents and visualises event frequency across different 
transitional justice categories. Trial cases were combined for similar court-
room locations, such as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former 
Yugoslavia (icty) or the international Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ictr).
As we can see in Figure 3 below, visualising art-related struggles on a map 
highlights geographical variation of alternative practices in comparison to 
retributive and restorative justice efforts. The current data points on the 
existing map also serve as an important reminder to inquire about art-related 
struggles that occur in spaces and contexts that are not necessarily captured by 
our initial keyword search—but which, according to our original conceptual 
framework, still fall within the spectrum of justice related struggles in times 
of political change. Furthermore, the recent linkages between art and transi-
tional justice in our media sources represent an opportunity to inquire about 
these appearances in terms of situated struggles. Who frames it? How are these 
discourses promoted? And what are the consequences? These questions thus 
call for a further examination of struggles for changes in related contexts that 
might not have been recorded under a common transitional justice label.
Consequently, the map complements existing studies that aim at capturing 
transitional justice trends, such as works mapping truth-seeking and fact-find-
ing bodies.152 While the current project version of the map contains only 
150 The interactive map is available here: https://arcg.is/0Ge5Gy, accessed July 25, 2021.
151 The majority of data is from the post-2011 period.
152 See for instance the digital archive of the United Institute of Peace on truth commissions, 
https://www.usip.org/publications/2011/03/truth-commission-digital-collection, 
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limited data points, the flexible database structure and geo mapping tool allow 
for further exploration and integration of additional variables in subsequent 
versions of the map.
This map is only a first attempt to capture and visualise situated struggles, 
manifestly with transversal effects. In fact, if the mapping and visualising 
instance is claimed and reappropriated by those who struggle the very site of 
creation can fuel an emancipatory and empowering potential for those who 
are less visible politically, socially and geospatially. However, the map contains 
several limitations for broader public use and with regards to generalizabil-
ity. First, the dataset is limited to a total of 1,104 cases across three categories 
with the majority of the cases stemming from the LexisNexis Uni archive. The 
restrictions associated with keyword searches in the digital archive also pose 
challenges to the extent to which all possible cases from the data archive itself 
have been accurately identified. Second, the codification by type of action 
was limited to two connected key search terms “transitional justice” and “art.” 
Consequently, the current map is a call to further explore and capture the 
emergence and existence of situated struggles across geographic locations and 
across time. More refined searches and the inclusion of other data sources, 
figure 3 Map visualisation of art-inspired transitional justice practices compared to truth 
commission occurrences and international human rights trial cases.
accessed May 15, 2021, or the project aimed at mapping North American truth 
commission efforts by the Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, https://www.
mapcustomizer.com/map/US%20Truth%20and%20Reconciliation%20Initiatives%20
2020, accessed May 1, 2021.
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such as archival material, will help further understand the nuances between 
a variety of engagements in different contexts and time periods. In sum, how-
ever, these preliminary results—particularly with regards to capturing the 
existence of art-inspired transitional justice practices—have illustrated the 
extent to which different stakeholders have engaged publicly in light of events, 
such as the so-called Arab Spring across the Middle East and North Africa 
region or the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States.
The End
Our piece demonstrates how justice as a political craft is embedded in trans-
versal and multi-layered processes in which social actors negotiate justice 
across time and space. Through our illustrations, we scrutinise the tensions 
and opportunities that emerge when we move beyond centring the transi-
tional justice mechanism to understand social and political change in varying 
temporal and spatial contexts. In this vein, we evaluate the political economy 
of the Island as a starting point, and conclude with the exploration of a larger 
Map, which locates the inside-out, outside-in, and in-between spaces which 
are home to situated struggles of justice. Each physical and symbolic site 
explored in this article unpacks and situates power struggles, contentious poli-
tics, and affect in connection with justice-seeking endeavours during intricate 
processes of political change.
Our examination of six distinctive sites—the Uprising, the Audience, the 
Body, the Affect, Island, and the Map—holds three implications for future 
research. First, to recognize and comprehend political change requires one to 
explore a range of sites outside the status quo of disciplinary confines. As Félix 
Guattari asserts, “Transdisciplinarity must become transversality between 
science, the socius, aesthetics and politics.”153 Our work offers scholars and 
practitioners new conceptual tools to apply boundary-transcending and 
cross-disciplinary integrating research. Doing so enables a greater understand-
ing of how, where and when change occurs, and facilitates a deeper insight 
into why change matters, and for whom. The contestations explored through-
out this article underscore the value of political change in effecting transfor-
mation in an interlinked global society.
Second, transformative political change is contingent on active engage-
ments of a variety of stakeholders and therefore requires us to carefully con-
sider the transversal politics of actors against the backdrop of their spatial and 
contextual surroundings. By conceptualising the Island as a distinct global 
153 Félix Guattari. “Transdisciplinarity Must Become Transversality.” Theory, Culture & 
Society 32, no. 5–6 (September 1, 2015): 134.
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space in an archipelago of justicecraft, we call for revisiting the concept of 
formalised struggles for change and justice. Claims brought forward on the 
Island may converge or diverge with formal and informal struggles in the other 
spaces. We argue, however, that it is critical to inquire whether claims on and 
from the Island hold more value or are more legitimised than those brought 
forward in other spaces, and why.
Third, the institutions that shape the Island are mostly located in the 
Global North, while Islanders have historically supported transitional justice 
processes in the Global South. Recently, as calls for transitional justice within 
former colonial powers and those countries with histories of enslavement 
and genocide grow louder, the trend is to reflect inward with the very tools 
exported by the transitional justice industry. In the United States, for exam-
ple, this has influenced foreign policymaking for some time, since there was 
more hesitancy to support measures that “could work inward, such as (…) rep-
arations, since there are recurring public demands for reparations for slavery 
in the United States.”154 Relatedly, there emerges an important concern that 
there is potential for some kind of “boomerang effect”: transitional justice in 
the Global North may create the same kinds of tensions we have observed 
throughout the Global South. Formalised transitional justice initiatives and 
prominent transitional justice elites may replace or coopt those actors already 
struggling for a deeper structural transformation, but who are not positioning 
themselves in the field.
To conclude, formalised initiatives, such as truth commissions or memorials, 
often serve as a pretext for state actors to avoid extensive changes necessary to 
address contemporary political exclusion and structural violence against indi-
viduals facing intergenerational harm inflicted by legacies of wrongdoings and 
injustice. To understand the possibility and ramifications of transformative 
change, we need an academic archipelago that embraces an inclusive vision, 
integrates diverse perspectives, and analyses challenging claims against the 
backdrop of justice as a political craft. Our collective work represents the first 
step to stake a conceptual path of justice and political change across time and 
space. We hope it serves as a source of inspiration and discussion for building 
and strengthening a transdisciplinary research agenda.
154 Mariam Salehi, “Transitional Justice as a Foreign Policy Issue across the Atlantic: Trends 
and Counter-Trends,” American Institute for Contemporary German Studies (AICGS), 
https://www.aicgs.org/publication/transitional-justice-as-a-foreign-policy-issue-across-
the-atlantic-trends-and-counter-trends/.
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Acknowledgements
Eliza Garnsey’s work is supported by the British Academy, grant number 
pf170086. Thank you to Marlene Dumas, the Constitutional Court of South 
Africa, and the Hall of Justice for their research support and the use of images, 
and to Ruby Zajec for her research assistance.
Mariam Salehi’s research for this article was supported by a daad/aicgs 
research fellowship.
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