Transitional Justice Discourse in Tunisia and the Construction of Categories: The Matrix of Time/ Place/Body/Memory

This paper examines the trajectory of transitional justice as a discourse within which conflicting power relations are intensified. It introduces a new conceptual matrix to approach this trajectory in Tunisia, based on time/place/body/memory that is at the heart of the transitional justice discourse structure. Several questions are raised to this aim, including: How can the process of transitional justice be understood as a discourse with the power to produce categories? How does transitional justice create categories of times, places, and bodies? What collective memory does transitional justice produce? Is it possible to deconstruct this discourse? The paper focuses on the techniques and structures of transitional justice discourse and attempts to uncover disunity within that discourse itself. Finally, the paper considers the possibilities of deconstructing transitional justice discourse. 

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This paper examines the trajectory of transitional justice as a discourse within which conflicting power relations are intensified. It introduces a new conceptual matrix to approach this trajectory in Tunisia, based on time/place/body/memory that is at the heart of the transitional justice discourse structure. Several questions are raised to this aim, including: How can the process of transitional justice be understood as a discourse with the power to produce categories? How does transitional justice create categories of times, places, and bodies? What collective memory does transitional justice produce? Is it possible to deconstruct this discourse? The paper focuses on the techniques and structures of transitional justice discourse and attempts to uncover disunity within that discourse itself. Finally, the paper considers the possibilities of deconstructing transitional justice discourse. 

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