1st Edition
Spectres of Reparation in South Africa Re-encountering the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
This book argues that South Africa is haunted by the spectre of reparation. The failure of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission to secure adequate reparation for the victims of colonisation and apartheid continues to drastically undermine the commission’s processes and legacy.
Investigating the TRC’s key processes of amnesty, archiving and forgiveness in turn, the book demonstrates that each process is fundamentally thwarted by the terminal lack of reparation. These multiple forms of the spectre of reparation haunt post-apartheid society in deeply traumatogenic ways. The book proposes a new ethic of "reparative citizenship" as a means of encountering the spectres of reparation in a productive and transformative manner, generating hope even in the face of the irreparable.
This book will be an important read for South Africans interested in overcoming the impasses and injustices that haunt the country, but it will also be of interest to post-conflict transitional justice and politics researchers more broadly.
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: The Ghost in the "Impossible Machine": Reparation and the Biopolitics of Transition
Chapter 3: On Apology and the Spectre of a Haunting Shame in the TRC
Chapter 4: The Spectre of Reparation in the Archive: The TRC’s Work on the Role of Business During Apartheid and the Ongoing Demand for Reparation
Chapter 5: The Spectre as Refusal: Reparation and Forgiveness in the Work of Mourning
Chapter 6: Creative Haunting: Towards the Poetic Justice of Reparative Citizenship
Chapter 7: Conclusion
Biography
Jaco Barnard-Naudé is Professor of Jurisprudence and Co-Director of the Centre for Rhetoric Studies (CRhS) at the Faculty of Law, University of Cape Town, South Africa.
Praise for Spectres of Reparation in South Africa:
“In this ground-breaking book, which draws seamlessly on both African indigenous cosmology and psychoanalytic theory, Barnard-Naudé helps us understand how spectres of reparation continue to haunt South Africa, many years after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) formally finished its work. […] This important book deserves to be read in South Africa and beyond, across disciplines, and by scholars and practitioners who are interested in linking transitional justice to more robust theoretical and political agendas.”
- Paul Gready, UNESCO Chair, Centre for Applied Human Rights, University of York, author of The Era of Transitional Justice: The Aftermath of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa and Beyond (2011).
Praise for Jaco Barnard-Naudé:
“A highly original scholar, at ease in the domains of politics and philosophy, law and literature, Jaco Barnard-Naudé has been making his mark for some time by bringing psychoanalysis to the negotiating table of political injustice. His work, rapidly becoming indispensable, has far-reaching ramifications for anyone reflecting on how to advance in the maelstrom that is South Africa today.”
– Jacqueline Rose, Professor and Co-Director, Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, University of London, author of On Violence and On Violence Against Women (2021).
