ABSTRACT
The chapter Post-Riot Narratives: Locating the Voices of “Displaced” Women? through a systematic examination of two post-riot judicial inquiry commissions suggests that only mainstream narratives find space in these inquiries and reports emerging from them. The post-riot narratives are no different where voices of women find no space and displacement, as the subject of analysis does not receive adequate attention. The absence of alternative narratives from the official inquiry is a result of being trapped with a mandate that is equipped to bring forward only masculine realities. It is a post-riot understanding of a violent, masculine conflict that takes centre stage completely brushing aside the stories of women who struggle to rebuild a life that undergo sudden displacement. The chapter explains this absence through a feminist critique of judicial inquiry commissions and the understanding of justice in retributive terms. The formal legal rational method of judicial commissions does not serve as a platform for experiences of forced displacement to emerge.
