A Question of Confession's Discovery

Erik Doxtader University of South Carolina

Abstract

What can be said in the aftermath? Faced with legacies of conflict and the gross violation of human rights, the contemporary discourse of transitional justice has defended the work of confession as a way for deeply divided societies to “come to terms” with the past and move forward. Underwritten by a complex promise of recognition, this call for confessional truth-telling has proven controversial, not least at it risks undermining the testimony of victims and granting undue status to perpetrators. Giving voice to events that may prove unspeakable and performing a subjectivity that may defy accountability, the figure of confession imagined by transitional justice is perhaps best envisioned as a rhetorical question, a difficult inquiry into the response-ability of language in the wake of violence.

Journal
Rhetoric Society Quarterly
Published
2011-05-01
DOI
10.1080/02773945.2011.575329
Open Access
Closed

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (1)

  1. Rhetoric Society Quarterly

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Also cites 14 works outside this index ↓
  1. 10.1017/CBO9780511627897.002
  2. 10.1080/1353464032000171046
  3. Without Alibi
  4. Without Alibi
  5. Without Alibi
  6. 10.1080/00335630.2010.521170
  7. 10.1017/CBO9780511607011
  8. Unspeakable Truths: Transitional Justice and the Challenge of Truth Commissions
  9. Pathmarks
  10. The Dark Side of Virtue: Reassessing International Humanitarianism
  11. Unsettling Accounts: Neither Truth nor Reconciliation in Confessions of State Violence
  12. Truth v. Justice: The Morality of Truth Commissions
  13. An African Athens: Rhetoric and the Shaping of Democracy in South Africa
  14. Transitional Justice
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