Reconciliation Discourse
The case of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
This volume is a research monograph analysing the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) from an ethnographic/linguistic point of view. The central proposition of this book is that the TRC can be regarded as a mechanism that leads to the hegemony of specific discourses, thus excercising power. The analysis illustrates how, through a certain type of reconciliation discourse constructed at the TRC hearings, a reconciliation-oriented reality took shape in post-TRC South Africa. Basically, the study points to the long-term implications a truth commission can exert on a traumatised post-conflict society. The book is unique on several levels: TRC discourse is explored in-depth on the basis of personal stories from TRC testifiers; a combination of Poststructuralist and Critical Discourse Analysis approaches form the theoretical foundations; and an extensive bibliography provides an impressive database of TRC publications.
[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture, 27] 2008. xiii, 238 pp.
Publishing status: Available
© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Table of Contents
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Preface | pp. xi–xii
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Acronyms | p. xiii
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1. Introduction | pp. 1–6
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2. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission | pp. 7–30
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3. The TRC Archive | pp. 31–42
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4. The sample | pp. 43–52
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5. Layering and HRV discourse: A critical perspective | pp. 53–140
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6. Reconciliation discourse, truth and society | pp. 141–166
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7. Exercising power through discourse | pp. 167–183
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8. Towards a conclusion | pp. 185–192
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Index | pp. 229–238
“
Reconciliation Discourse is unique on several levels: TRC discourse is explored in depth on the basis of personal stories from TRC testifiers, a combination of Poststructuralist and Critical Discourse Analysis approaches form the theoretical foundations, and an extensive bibliography provides an impressive database of TRC publications.”
On SirReadaLot.org, April 2008 issue
“Annelies Verdoolaege's book-length critical discourse analysis of the South Africa Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Human Rights Violations (HRV) hearings is a welcome contribution to the extensive bibliography on the truth commission and reconciliation; it provides important new perspectives on the hearings and enriches our understandings of the relationship between discourse and reconciliation.”
Susan Lawrence, George Mason University, USA, in Language in Society, Vol. 38, issue 2 (2009).
“I endorse the view that Verdoolaege’s study unpacked aspects of the TRC that scholars and researchers neglected to evaluate. As a consequence of Verdoolaege’s invaluable research outcomes, our understanding and perspective of the TRC process has been deepened and enhanced. Verdoolaege’s book is an important critical text for everyone in the social sciences and humanities, particularly for those in the specific field of language and linguistic studies.”
Muhammed Haron, University of Botswana, in Peace Review 24, pages 122-125.
Cited by (25)
Cited by 25 other publications
Lester, Claire-Anne
2024. Discourses on Political Violence and the Mechanics of Legitimation in Official Commissions of Inquiry in Africa. In The Palgrave Handbook of Violence in Africa, ► pp. 243 ff. 
Milani, Tommaso M. & John E. Richardson
2023. Discourses of collective remembering: contestation, politics, affect. Critical Discourse Studies 20:5 ► pp. 459 ff.
Bentrovato, Denise
2021. History Education, Transitional Justice and Politics of Reconciliation: Multi- and Univocality Around Violent Pasts in South African and Rwandan Textbooks. In Historical Justice and History Education, ► pp. 291 ff.
McCallum, Harry
2021. Theatre and witnessing: an investigation into verbatim ‘theatre as reconciliation’ in post-apartheid South Africa. South African Theatre Journal 34:3 ► pp. 166 ff.
Mussi, Francesca
2020. Truth-Telling: Hybridity, Authorship and Ethics. In Literary Legacies of the South African TRC, ► pp. 107 ff.
Mussi, Francesca
2020. Introduction: The South African TRC and Its Narrative Legacies. In Literary Legacies of the South African TRC, ► pp. 1 ff.
Okulska, Urszula
Tessema, Marshet Tadesse
2018. The Ethiopian Approach to Reckon with Derg Crimes: The Road to the Creation of the Special Public Prosecutor’s Office. In Prosecution of Politicide in Ethiopia [International Criminal Justice Series, 18], ► pp. 133 ff.
de Costa, Ravi
2017. Discursive institutions in non-transitional societies: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. International Political Science Review 38:2 ► pp. 185 ff.
Flowerdew, John
2017. Understanding the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement: A critical discourse historiographical approach. Discourse & Society 28:5 ► pp. 453 ff.
Tovares, Alla V
2016. Going off-script and reframing the frame: The dialogic intertwining of the centripetal and centrifugal voices in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings. Discourse & Society 27:5 ► pp. 554 ff.
de Smet, Sofie, Marieke Breyne & Christel Stalpaert
2015. When the past strikes the present: performing requiems for the Marikana massacre. South African Theatre Journal 28:3 ► pp. 222 ff.
Rae, Maria
2015. When reconciliation means reparations: Tasmania's compensation to the stolen generations. Griffith Law Review 24:4 ► pp. 640 ff.
Renner, Judith
2015. Producing the subjects of reconciliation: the making of Sierra Leoneans as victims and perpetrators of past human rights violations. Third World Quarterly 36:6 ► pp. 1110 ff.
Wallmach, Kim
2014. Recognising the ‘little perpetrator’ in each of us: Complicity, responsibility and translation/interpreting in institutional contexts in multilingual South Africa. Perspectives 22:4 ► pp. 566 ff.
Beitler, James Edward
2013. The Rhetorical Tradition of Transitional Justice. In Remaking Transitional Justice in the United States, ► pp. 29 ff.
Komosa, Marcin
2013. Komisja prawdy. Mechanizm odpowiedzialności za naruszenie praw człowieka,
Odom, Glenn A.
2011. South African Truth and Tragedy: Yael Farber'sMoloraand Reconciliation Aesthetics. Comparative Literature 63:1 ► pp. 47 ff.
Spring, Kimberly
2010. Re-Presenting Victim and Perpetrator: The Role of Photographs in US Service Members’ Testimony Against War. In Memory and the Future, ► pp. 105 ff.
Verdoolaege, Annelies
2009. Dealing with a traumatic past: the victim hearings of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and their reconciliation discourse. Critical Discourse Studies 6:4 ► pp. 297 ff.
Verdoolaege, Annelies
2009. The audience as actor: the participation status of the audience at the victim hearings of the South African TRC. Discourse Studies 11:4 ► pp. 441 ff.
Verdoolaege, Annelies
2012. Representing Apartheid Trauma: The Archive of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Victim Hearings. In Representations of Peace and Conflict, ► pp. 285 ff.
Verdoolaege, Annelies
2015. Reconciliation Discourse. In The International Encyclopedia of Language and Social Interaction, ► pp. 1 ff.
Wodak, Ruth & John E. Richardson
2009. On the politics of remembering (or not). Critical Discourse Studies 6:4 ► pp. 231 ff.
Krog, Antjie
2008. ‘This thing called reconciliation…‘forgiveness as part of an interconnectedness-towards-wholeness. South African Journal of Philosophy 27:4 ► pp. 353 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 september 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.
Subjects
Communication Studies
Main BIC Subject
CFG: Semantics, Pragmatics, Discourse Analysis
Main BISAC Subject
LAN015000: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Rhetoric