Reckoning with Truth Commissions: Implication in Transitional Justice and Settler Colonialism

Reckoning with Truth Commissions: Implication in Transitional Justice and Settler Colonialism

Transitional justice

Kristen Walker

Leah Kathryn Wilson

2024

Carleton University

Dissertation

English

Canada

Open Access

The inability to address institutional harm is a criticism of Western, liberal democracies and is particularly pertinent for settler colonial contexts where violence is structural and often seen as occurring solely in the past. Through a lens of “implication,” as developed in Michael Rothberg’s 2019 book The Implicated Subject, I assess the role of collective responsibility of and for settler colonial institutions. Through a case study of the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Mandate and Calls to Action, alongside a review of the commission’s summary reports, I evaluate how institutions in settler colonial contexts see themselves implicated (or not) for colonial policies and how these forms of responsibility are negotiated within transitional justice processes. The lens of implication can be a catalyst for understanding our associated relationality to institutional harm/violence, how we are involved in it, and how we can begin to recognize the potential for its dismantling.