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The book investigates the use of bottom-up, community based healing and peacebuilding approaches, focusing on their strengths and suggesting how they can be enhanced. The main contribution of the book is an ethnographic investigation of how post-conflict communities in parts of Southern Africa use their local resources to forge a future after mass violence. The way in which Namibia's Herero and Zimbabwe's Ndebele dealt with their respective genocides is a major contribution of the book.
The focus of the book is on two Southern African countries that never experienced institutionalized transitional justice as dispensed in post-apartheid South Africa via the famed Truth and Reconciliation Commission. We answer the question: how have communities healed and reconciled after the end of protracted violence and gross human rights abuses in Zimbabwe and Namibia? We depart from statetist, top-down, one-size fits all approaches to transitional justice and investigate bottom-up approaches.
List of contents
Chapter 1: Transitology, Transitional Justice and Transformative Justice
Everisto Benyera
Chapter 2: A Dozen Transitional Justice Realities and Some Preliminary Problematisation
Everisto Benyera
Chapter 3: The Case for Indigenous, Traditional and Non-State Transitional Justice
Everisto Benyera
Chapter 4: Construing Transitology in the Context(s) of Democratization, Transitional Justice and Decolonization in Africa: A Legal Anthropology Perspective
Tapiwa Warikandwa & Artwell Nhemachena
Chapter 5: Operation Murambatsvina, Transitional Justice & Discursive Representation in Zimbabwe
Umali Saidi
Chapter 6: 'Healing the Dead' in Matabeleland, Zimbabwe: Combining Tradition with Science to Restore Personhood after Massacres
Shari Eppel
Chapter 7: The Aftermath of Gukurahundi: Dealing with Wounds of the Genocide through Non-State Justice Processes in Bubi (Inyathi) and Nkayi Districts, Matabeleland North Province, Zimbabwe
Ruth Murambadoro and Chenai Matshaka
Chapter 8: Grassroots Mechanisms for Justice, Peace-building and Social Cohesion in Zimbabwe's 'New' Farm Communities
Tom Tom and Clement Chipenda
Chapter 9: Young women in peacebuilding and development in Zimbabwe: The case of Zimbabwe Young Women's Network for Peacebuilding in Mutoko
Patience Thauzeni and Torque Mude
Chapter 10: Stains on the Wall: Struggle to survive post genocide violence by Nama- Herero communities in Namibia
Tafirenyika Madziyauswa
Chapter 11: Uncharted Waters: Reparations through Indigenous Forms of Transitional Justice for Namibian Victims of a colonial Genocide
Christian Harris
About the author
Everisto Benyera is associate professor of African politics at the University of South Africa in Pretoria.Everisto Benyera is associate professor of African politics at the University of South Africa in Pretoria.Artwell Nhemachena is visiting associate professor at Kobe University, research fellow at the University of South Africa, and senior lecturer at the University of Namibia.Ruth Murambadoro is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Feminist Research at York University.Chenai G. Matshaka is a researcher at the Centre for Mediation in Africa at the University of Pretoria.
Summary
This book explores indigenous and traditional, non-state transitional justice mechanisms used in two South African countries where there were no formal transitional justice mechanisms after protracted violence. It details how communities delve into their history and modes of everyday living in order to resolve conflict and achieve reconciliation.
