One truth among others? Truth commissions’ struggle for truth and memory

Abstract

Most truth commissions combine human rights investigation with a historical narrative explaining the causes and patterns of violence and violations. However, their historiographical function has been generally overlooked in transitional justice scholarship, as well as in history and memory studies. This article presents an analytical framework to situate truth commission narratives in the broader context of struggles for social memory. I argue that the historical context chapters in commissions’ final reports reflect the explanatory schemes and memory tropes circulating in wider society, but they also often transform the terms of the societal debate. Commissions negotiate the tension between their authoritative status over historical truth and the need to persuade those who question their truthfulness and legitimacy. Toward that end, they adopt various narrative strategies (adjudication, avoidance, giving voice, and transformation). Finally, while it should be acknowledged that the strategic interventions and silences of commissions have ruled out many alternative memories (and along with them, visions of future), it is wrong to reduce commission narratives to politically usable reconstructions of the past, as they have often surprised and upset political leaders through their findings, historical explanations, and recommendations.