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Summary

This seminar will examine the role of the “politics of gender” in transitional justice through an interrogation of past and present processes in Africa. The concept of transitional justice continues to be the globally dominant framework that informs states undergoing political transition and exists as one component of the broader project of state-building centred upon the realisation of democracy, rule of law and respect for human rights. Already frameworks for transitional justice have been developed for current conflicts, including those in Ukraine and Sudan, but the ability of these processes to address gendered harms is debateable. The central objective of this seminar will be to question to what extent gender justice has been advanced in approaches to transitional justice on the African continent.

Through drawing on examples from the transitions in South Africa, Tunisia and Kenya this seminar will explore the links between persistent socio-economic and gendered inequality, high levels of gender-based violence and the limitations of transitional justice processes. Analyses of previous processes reveal the tendency to frame gender as a binary concept with women as representative of all things gender. Conversely men’s experiences have become cast as normative and neutral within the context of transitional justice. This is combined with assumptions that the representation of women and legal reforms will address legacies of gendered violence. However, in recent years both Sierra Leone and South Africa, the poster child for transitional justice, have declared gender-based violence as national emergencies. By exploring the limitations posed by how gendered violence is understood by international and regional actors, this seminar will pay consideration to the “politics of gender” we have witnessed during recent transitions from authoritarianism and conflict.

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