The Co-Production of (Post-)conflict Narratives and Practices Between Survivors and 'Well-Meaning Outsiders': Contestations of Transitional Justice in (Post-)conflict Peru

Transitional justice (TJ) is characterized by the involvement of local, national and international actors and their respective ideas on dealing with the past. The diffusion of TJ is often studied from a global-local perspective in which survivors are merely represented as the receivers of TJ policies. Nevertheless, on-the-ground frictions in TJ prove to have a versatile character that cannot easily be reduced to top-down versus bottom-up or local versus global dynamics. Survivors appropriate, reaffirm or contest TJ and its underlying ideas in function of specific aims and (political) struggles. It is this dynamic of diffusion of TJ by 'well-meaning outsiders' (Jelin, 2009) involved in the diffusion and implementation of transitional justice discourses and practices on the one hand, and its appropriation and contestation by survivors on the other, that shapes (post-)conflict narratives and practices on justice. Transcending the local-global binary and emphasizing the entanglement of actors and ideas enables us to go against the presumption that 'ideas' and 'politics' (exclusively) belong to the global or international realm, and 'experience' and 'culture' to the local. Through this lens, the co-production of (post-)conflict narratives and practices of justice between survivors and 'well-meaning outsiders' becomes clear. On the basis of extensive field research with survivors and ex-militia members, this paper will apply this approach to processes of diffusion and contestation of transitional justice in rural (post-)conflict communities in the region of Ayacucho, Peru.