Introduction

Reconciliation has become something of a buzzword. It is regularly invoked in discussions about how societies might go about the business of contending with a violent past, presumed to be a key goal of transitional justice processes,¹ and viewed as an ‘absolute necessity’ for societies contending with legacies of violence and atrocity.² As such, reconciliation is no longer confined to its original, largely religious, connotations, denoting a relationship between individuals and their God;³ it has expanded and transformed into a central facet of most, if not all, political transitions and post-conflict peacebuilding programmes. There is now a veritable reconciliation industry, with practitioners and organisations dedicated to ensuring that individuals, states and societies reconcile with one another. At the same time, there have been numerous attempts to offer a definition of reconciliation, which have tended to centre understandings of reconciliation on the (re)building or repair of relationships at various levels within a society – from the individual to the nation.⁴ In the political and secular domain, it is often conceived of as a process, with ‘thin’ and ‘thick’ versions,⁵ from the mere absence of violent conflict to a deeper empathy and the engine of political transformation.