Civil Society Narratives of violence and the shaping of the transitional justice agenda in Zimbabwe : 2000-2013

Abstract

How we respond to legacies of past violence cannot be separated from the narratives we hold about that violence. When the state fails, for whatever reason, to take the lead in dealing with past violence and the development of a public narrative about conflict, various groups may seek to fill that space based on different agendas. The way individuals and organisations outside the state interpret and engage with processes of dealing with the past is influenced by the narratives they hold and are exposed to, and this can have positive or negative implications for long-term peace. This thesis seeks to interrogate how civil society narratives of electoral violence have shaped the transitional justice agenda in Zimbabwe, as drawn from the way they report and depict understandings of this violence, through written texts as well as the way they speak about violence in various public forums. This investigation is done through a qualitative interpretivist approach to understand the kinds of narratives of violence espoused by four civil society organisations through a categorical content analysis of their reports and in-depth interviews with four key stakeholders. The thesis concludes that while the understandings of violence are key to how we deal with the violence, these understandings have to be drawn genuinely from the experiences of those that have lived the violence, and not from agendas that seek certain ends, whether political or economic.