Truth Telling, Identities, and Power in South Africa and Guatemala

Madeleine Fullard and Nicky Rousseau
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Truth commissions can provide a stage for a potentially powerful encounter with the past (and present) at the level of public discourse. While their capacity to effect transformation in societies marked by patterns of identity-related marginalization and exclusion is limited (and the expectation that they should do so is unrealistic), their engagement with citizenship issues in particular can open significant discursive space for new public positions and forms of agency.