The politics of truth and reconciliation in South Africa : legitimizing the post-apartheid state

Resource Information

The work The politics of truth and reconciliation in South Africa : legitimizing the post-apartheid state represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Biddle Law Library - University of Pennsylvania Law School. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

The politics of truth and reconciliation in South Africa : legitimizing the post-apartheid state

Title remainder

legitimizing the post-apartheid state

Statement of responsibility

Richard A. Wilson

Creator

• Wilson, Richard, 1964-

Subject

• Electronic books
• Post-apartheid era -- South Africa
• Reconciliation -- Political aspects -- South Africa
• Retribution
• South Africa -- Politics and government -- 1994-
• South Africa -- Race relations
• South Africa, Truth and Reconciliation Commission
• Apartheid -- South Africa

Genre

• Electronic books

Language

eng

Summary

"The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was set up to deal with the human rights violations of apartheid during the years 1960-1994. However, as Wilson shows, the TRC's restorative justice approach to healing the nation did not always serve the needs of communities at a local level. Based on extended anthropological fieldwork, this book illustrates the impact of the TRC in urban African communities in the Johannesburg area. While a religious constituency largely embraced the Commission's religious-redemptive language of reconciliation, Wilson argues that the TRC had little effect on popular ideas of justice as retribution. This provocative study deepens our understanding of post-apartheid South Africa and the use of human rights discourse. It ends on a call for more cautious and realistic expectations about what human rights institutions can achieve in democratizing countries."--Jacket

Member of

• Cambridge studies in law and society

Cataloging source

N$T

Illustrations

• illustrations
• maps

Index

index present

LC call number

DT1974.2

LC item number

.W55 2001eb

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

• dictionaries
• bibliography

Series statement

Cambridge studies in law and society