Paper short abstract:

This paper analyzes the research, policy, practice nexus in African transitional justice debates. It challenges dominant conceptions of what knowledge is used and valued in TJ debates in and on Africa whilst also highlighting the knowledge production practices particular to select African contexts.

Paper long abstract:

Whilst Africa has been described as the transitional justice (TJ) laboratory of the world, knowledge about African TJ processes is said to be produced elsewhere. In addition, in the transitional justice literature the overlapping and rotating roles of researchers, practitioners and policy makers have been variously described, praised and lamented. Trapped within a dominant tradition of 'research objectivity' transitional justice scholarship has also often sought to produce 'objective' research 'from a distance'. In this chapter we will reflect on our team's experiences of positionality and the shifting roles we sometimes inhabit. Drawing on a series of vignettes we will make sense of these experiences within the larger debates on the research, policy, practice nexus in TJ and global politics of knowledge production more generally. Our vignettes 'from the field' draw on data collected from South Sudan, Cote d'Ivoire, Mozambique, and the African Union.

There are some indications that in a number of these contexts, rather than seeing overlapping roles as problematic, the ability to learn from practice is considered valuable. Activist, practitioner and research roles are here considered to be mutually beneficial. These seemingly contrasting understandings will be drawn on to better understand how the different knowledge functions and roles of practitioners, researchers and policy-makers are conceptualized, how they conflict and compete but also enrich one another. This paper will thus challenge dominant conceptions of what knowledge is used, valued and legitimized in TJ debates in and on Africa whilst also highlighting the knowledge production practices particular to these contexts.