"reconciliation" in transitional justice: comparative conceptual history on South Africa, Brazil and Chile

Abstract

The aim of this post-doctoral research is to analyze, in comparative perspective, how South Africa, Brazil and Chile addressed the concept of "reconciliation" in the course of their transitional justice processes. As I have argued in my Ph.D. dissertation, transitional justice is a privileged field for the evaluation of an effort carried out by state institutions by which the state (re)elaborates on its own political grounds and on the basis on which the subject of nation-building can be reestablished. Briefly stated and in view of this analytical framework, this research holds basically three objectives: (1) to build a narrative on how the experiences of transitional justice in Brazil, Chile and South Africa have addressed the concept of "reconciliation"; (2) to analyze the meaning of nation-building that this concept withholds in each case; and (3) to discuss these different elaborations of "reconciliation" in light of each other and the changes that they may have undergone in the process. (AU)