ABSTRACT
More than the other keywords of transition, reconciliation is the canvas onto which contemporary post-conflict societies project their ideals and ambition. In the introduction to Remaking a World: Violence, Social Suffering, and Recovery, Das and Kleinman (2002: 3-4) argue that reconciliation, or what they describe as ‘the recovery of the everyday’, engages survivors of collective tragedy in, on the one hand, the ‘creation of alternate public spheres for articulating and recounting experience silenced by officially sanctioned narratives’, which folds into the broader demand for political recognition and a renegotiated citizenship from previously marginalised voices. On the other hand, it requires ‘repair of relationships in the deep recesses of family, neighborhood, and community’. This chapter addresses the creation of alternative public spheres; the chapter that follows situates relationships at the heart of reconciliation praxis. The best place to begin is by outlining the manner in which the TRC itself understood and sought to facilitate reconciliation.
