New Insights in the Practice and Research of Transitional Justice

Today, transitional justice is well established as both an academic field and a multilevel policy response following the end of civil wars, repressive regimes or occupation. Over the past ten years, this field of research has undergone a significant critical turn by moving its focus beyond a legal framework, drawing in particular from other disciplines such as political science, sociology, peacebuilding, development and anthropology, among others. Challenging the close intertwining of advocacy, policy, practice and research ever since the emergence of the field, scholars have also increasingly raised issues of power, legitimacy and agency and enquired about the effectiveness and transformative impact (or lack thereof) of transitional justice processes in general and mechanisms in particular. In this Section, we invite Panels and Papers which share conceptual, empirical and practical insights on transitional justice from a diversity of methodological and theoretical perspectives. In particular, we are interested in innovative approaches which add new insights to existing critiques on the limitations of transitional justice, but also on insights for, and from, practitioners as to what to do with such knowledge and whether, or how, it can improve the practice in the field. Topics addressed may include, but are certainly not limited to, epistemologies of transitional justice research and practice; debates about transitional vs transformative justice or reflections on the interlinkages between transitional justice and other specialized areas of research, policy and practice such as gender, migration, memory politics and archives. Panels planned for this Section include, but will not be limited to, the following topics: 1) the politics of knowledge production in transitional justice; 2) conceptual and practice-oriented reflections on transformative justice; 3) archives and transitional justice. Panels or Papers which focus on insights gained from single case studies or comparative approaches to specific regions are also welcome. Finally, the Section Co-Chairs wish to encourage early career as well as established scholars in the field of transitional justice to participate in this year’s ECPR General Conference. This Section aims to place scholars at different stages of their career in conversation with each other, in order to encourage, inspire and challenge a new generation of political scientists.