BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Authority\, Expertise and Race in the South African TRC - Dr. Debo
 rah Posel\, Professor of Sociology at the University of Cape Town
DTSTART:20170517T160000Z
DTEND:20170517T174500Z
UID:TALK72608@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Nikta Daijavad
DESCRIPTION:In the literature on transitional justice\, much attention has
  been focused on its repertoires of ‘reconciliation’\, as opposed to m
 ore punitive versions of justice: what reconciliation entails\, and its ar
 ticulation with the effort to authorize a truthful version of a brutal and
  divisive past.    Less interest has been accorded to the modes of experti
 se appropriate to the task.  Who is appropriately qualified to pass judgem
 ent on a bitterly contested past\, and on what grounds? Who is appropriate
 ly situated to effect reconciliation? What are the appropriate criteria an
 d procedures whereby those tasked with effecting transitional justice are 
 selected and appointed?  In this paper\, I reflect on the determination an
 d production of expertise in the South African Truth and Reconciliation Co
 mmission\, which looms large in the field of transitional justice as one o
 f the most closely scrutinized and globally influential truth commissions.
    This reveals\, I argue\, an incipient identity politics at play in the 
 TRC – tensely articulated with its normative touchstone of non-racialism
 . \n\nDeborah Posel is professor of sociology at the University of Cape To
 wn and founding director of the Institute for Humanities in Africa. Prior 
 to that she spent many years at the University of Witwatersrand as a profe
 ssor of sociology and director of the Wits Institute for Social and Econom
 ic Research (WISER)\, which she founded in 2000. She has written and publi
 shed widely on aspects of South African politics and society during and be
 yond the apartheid years – including The Making of Apartheid (1991)\; Ap
 artheid’s Genesis (1994) with Phil Bonner and Peter Delius\; and Commiss
 ioning the Past: Understanding South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation C
 ommission (2002) with Graeme Simpson.
LOCATION: Room S1\, Alison Richard Building\, 7 West Road\, Cambridge\, CB
 3 9DT
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR