Towards an ‘IDP Approach’ in Transitional Justice: Developing New Epistemologies about International Crimes

The issues surrounding ‘dealing with the past’ or ‘transitional justice’ are most often managed by national and international elites and the views and expectations of the local populations are rarely taken into account. Yet population-based researches “from below” (McEvoy & McGregor, 2008) or that are ‘bottom-up’ can yield interesting insights into strategies and mechanisms for dealing with the crimes of the past and for reconstructing the future. Not only do they provide additional information about people’s attitudes, they also constitute a new epistemology about international crimes. In this paper, we argue in favour of a novel ‘IDP approach’ that combines Information, Dialogue and Process in the field of transitional justice. Drawing on several types of empirical research, by our own team and external researchers, this presentation will focus on several methods of quantitative surveys and qualitative interviewing designed to collect data on the opinions of affected populations. It will also sketch the strengths and weaknesses of such methods and raise some questions about the underlying assumptions.