Legacies of State Violence and Transitional Justice in Latin America

A Janus-Faced Paradigm?

Edited by Nina Schneider and Marcia Esparza - Contributions by Steve Dobransky; Rosario Figari Layus; Roberto Gargarella; Cecília MacDowell Santos; Jesus Peña; Renan Quinalha; Percy Rojas; Debbie Sharnak; Laura Tejero and Edson Teles

Legacies of State Violence and Transitional Justice in Latin America presents a nuanced and evidence-based discussion of both the acceptance and co-optation of the transitional justice framework and its potential abuses in the context of the struggle to keep the memory of the past alive and hold perpetrators accountable within Latin America and beyond. The contributors argue that “transitional justice”—understood as both a conceptual framework shaping discourses and a set of political practices—is a Janus-faced paradigm. Historically it has not always advanced but often hindered attempts to achieve historical memory and seek truth and justice. This raises the vital question: what other theoretical frameworks can best capture legacies of human rights crimes? Providing a historical view of current developments in Latin America’s reckoning processes, Legacies of State Violence and Transitional Justice in Latin America reflects on the meaning of the paradigm’s reception: what are the broader political and social consequences of supporting, appropriating, or rejecting the transitional justice paradigm?

Lexington Books

Pages: 214 • Trim: 6¼ x 9⅜

978-1-4985-1385-2 • Hardback • October 2015 • $114.00 • (£88.00)

978-1-4985-1386-9 • eBook • October 2015 • $108.00 • (£83.00)

Subjects: History / Latin America / Central America, History / Latin America / South America, Political Science / Country and Regional Studies

Legacies of State Violence and Transitional Justice in Latin America

A Janus-Faced Paradigm?

Hardback

eBook

Summary

Legacies of State Violence and Transitional Justice in Latin America presents a nuanced and evidence-based discussion of both the acceptance and co-optation of the transitional justice framework and its potential abuses in the context of the struggle to keep the memory of the past alive and hold perpetrators accountable within Latin America and beyond. The contributors argue that “transitional justice”—understood as both a conceptual framework shaping discourses and a set of political practices—is a Janus-faced paradigm. Historically it has not always advanced but often hindered attempts to achieve historical memory and seek truth and justice. This raises the vital question: what other theoretical frameworks can best capture legacies of human rights crimes? Providing a historical view of current developments in Latin America’s reckoning processes, Legacies of State Violence and Transitional Justice in Latin America reflects on the meaning of the paradigm’s reception: what are the broader political and social consequences of supporting, appropriating, or rejecting the transitional justice paradigm?

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 214 • Trim: 6¼ x 9⅜

978-1-4985-1385-2 • Hardback • October 2015 • $114.00 • (£88.00)

978-1-4985-1386-9 • eBook • October 2015 • $108.00 • (£83.00)

Subjects: History / Latin America / Central America, History / Latin America / South America, Political Science / Country and Regional Studies

Author

Nina Schneider is a visiting scholar at the National University of Brasília, a research fellow at the Global South Study Center (GSSC) at the University of Cologne, and an associate fellow of the Zukunftskolleg at the University of Konstanz.

Marcia Esparza is associate professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, founder and co-director of the Historical Memory Project (HMP), and visiting scholar of the Zukunftskolleg at the University of Konstanz.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Whose Transition? Whose Voices?: Latin American Responses to Transitional Justice, Nina Schneider and Marcia Esparza

Part I. Argentina
Chapter 1: “What Do You Mean by Transitional Justice?”: Local Perspectives on Human Rights Trials in Argentina, Rosario Figari Layús

Part II. Brazil
Chapter 2: The Scope and Limits of the Discourse on “Transitional Justice” in Brazil, Edson Teles and Renan H. Quinalha
Chapter 3: Transitional Justice from the Margins: Legal Mobilization and Memory Politics in Brazil, Cecília MacDowell Santos

Part III. El Salvador
Chapter 4: Toward Reconsidering the Root Causes of Violence: Free Trade, Mining, and Transitional Justice in Central America, Steve Dobransky

Part IV. Peru
Chapter 5: First Empowerment, then Disillusion: The Ambivalent Legacy of the Transitional Justice Framework in Local Peru, Laura Tejero Tabernero
Chapter 6: How Transitional is Justice?: Peru’s Post-Conflict Revisited, José Pablo Baraybar, Jesús Peña, and Percy Rojas

Part V. Uruguay
Chapter 7: Uruguay and the Reconceptualization of Transitional Justice, Debbie Sharnak

Part VI. Latin America
Chapter 8: Concluding Reflections, Roberto Gargarella

Reviews

This volume engages critically with the paradigm of transitional justice (TJ) and its application in Latin America.... [T]his book represents a valuable contribution to an emerging literature that abandons triumphalist discourses concerning TJ and calls for a critical examination of the ideological foundations, results and shortcomings of this paradigm
— Journal of Latin American Studies

This is an excellent collection that should be read by all students and practitioners of transitional justice. The case studies cut through much of the verbiage that has dominated debate by showing what happens and has happened to real people on the ground
— Hispanic American Historical Review

Legacies of State Violence and Transitional Justice in Latin America examines the cross-cutting temporalities and multiple frictions at play when various stakeholders debate how best to satisfy the claims to truth, memory, and justice amidst the legacies of violent and authoritarian regimes. This book raises important challenges to the existing transitional justice paradigm, amply demonstrating that social and economic rights are key components of victim-survivors’ repertoire of justice.
— Kimberly Theidon, Tufts University