The politics of truth and reconciliation in South Africa: legitimizing the post-apartheid state

The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was set up to deal with the human rights violations of apartheid during the years 1960-1994.

However, as Wilson shows, the TRC's restorative justice approach to healing the nation did not always serve the needs of communities at a local level.

Based on extended anthropological fieldwork, this book illustrates the impact of the TRC in urban African communities in Johannesburg.

While a religious constituency largely embraced the commission's religious-redemptive language of reconciliation, Wilson argues that the TRC had little effect on popular ideas of justice as retribution.

This provocative study deepens our understanding of post-apartheid South Africa and the use of human rights discourse.

It ends on a call for more cautious and realistic expectations about what human rights institutions can achieve in democratizing countries.