List of Maps; Acknowledgements; 1. Agency in times of transitional justice: recognized and unrecognized mechanisms 'at work'; 2. Navigating violence, peace and justice: conflict and post-conflict experiences in Sierra Leone; 3. Deconstructing Fambul Tok's discourse and practice: the local, ownership and participation; 4. Participant experiences with Fambul Tok's program: interpretation, appropriation, agency; 5. Unrecognized mechanisms, normality and everyday realities in transition; 6. Activating justice; Appendix A. Informant interview list; References; Index.
Examines local transitional justice processes in post-conflict Sierra Leone to explain how these programs work in practice.
Laura S. Martin is Assistant Professor at the University of Nottingham and an affiliate at the University of Makeni, Sierra Leone. She has conducted research in Sierra Leone for over ten years and, in 2021, was Co-Investigator on an AHRC project entitled 'Performing Arts and Social Violence'. She has been published in numerous journals including Cooperation and Conflict and Third World Quarterly.
'This is an outstanding and important book about how transition and
justice are understood and achieved after conflict. Drawing on
extensive work in Sierra Leone, Martin documents the creative,
subversive and transformative ways that individuals and communities
exercised agency in practice, through both recognised and
unrecognised justice processes.' Kirsten Ainley, Australian
National University
'At a time when transitional justice scholarship is concerned with
localisation, Laura Martin provides an insightful account of Sierra
Leonean justice initiatives that oscillate between translating and
appropriating global norms. Illustrating their agency in an
environment composed of many norm entrepreneurs with different
interests and agendas, this is a profoundly political project.'
Susanne Buckley-Zistel, Philipps University Marburg
'This is a nuanced, meticulous ethnographic account of the
experience of transitional justice in Sierra Leone that challenges
our assumptions. With over a decade of contemporary efforts to
localize transitional justice programs, policies, and practices,
there could be no better or more timely empirical evaluation of
this process in Sierra Leone and other transitional societies.'
Mohamed Sesay, York University
'This is an important contribution to our understanding of
localized transitional justice and hybrid peacebuilding. It shows
how ordinary Sierra Leoneans re-interpreted Fambul Tok's avowedly
local agenda for their own, even more localized, goals. It also
highlights the crucial role of intra-local frictions - something
that gets obscured by more romanticized accounts of local peace and
justice initiatives.' Lars Waldorf, University of Essex
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