SPECTRES OF REPARATION IN SOUTH AFRICA, re-encountering the Truth and Reconciliation Commission

244pp., hardback, Abingdon, 2024

Jaco Barbard-Naudé argues that the failure of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to secure adequate reparation for the victims of colonisation and apartheid undermines the commission’s processes and legacy.

“In this ground-breaking book, which draws seamlessly on both African indigenous cosmology and psychoanalytic theory, Barnard-Naudé helps us understand how spectres of reparation continue to haunt South Africa, many years after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) formally finished its work ... This important book deserves to be read in South Africa and beyond, across disciplines, and by scholars and practitioners who are interested in linking transitional justice to more robust theoretical and political agendas.” Paul Gready, UNESCO Chair, Centre for Applied Human Rights, University of York, and author of The Era of Transitional Justice: The aftermath of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa and beyond

Jaco Barnard-Naudé is Professor of Jurisprudence and Co-Director of the Centre for Rhetoric Studies at the Faculty of Law, University of Cape Town.