The Global Textual Legacies of Truth Commissions: Narratives on Sexual Violence in the Reports of Sierra Leone, Liberia, Kenya and Beyond

Truth commission reports serve as pivotal textual legacies that interpret and narrate extreme violence, providing structured narratives from fragmented individual accounts. These reports, preserved by initiatives like UNESCO's Memory of the World, offer normative interpretations of past atrocities, turning incomprehensible sequences into meaningful stories. The study focuses on the global textual legacy of truth commissions, analyzing their role in documenting and evaluating violence, particularly sexual violence, across cases such as Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Kenya. By examining these reports, researchers reveal how truth commissions shape societal understanding of conflict through fixed, written narratives.

Buckley-Zistel, S. (2019). The Global Textual Legacies of Truth Commissions: Narratives on Sexual Violence in the Reports of Sierra Leone, Liberia, Kenya and Beyond. The Global Impact and Legacy of Truth Commissions, 99–118. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781780687957.004