Understanding ‘Resistance’ to Transitional Justice

This chapter asks what can be learned if people truly engage with resistance to transitional justice processes as an object of enquiry. Embedded in critical transitional justice scholarship and critical peace studies, it conceives of transitional justice as a political process of negotiation between different actors. Resistance thus becomes a necessary element in the empirical unfolding of transitional justice processes. The chapter presents conceptual and methodological approaches and discussions of a three-year, multi-country research project on “Resisting Transitional Justice? Alternative Understandings of Peace and Justice” of swisspeace and the University of Basel (2012–2015). It focuses on findings from the case study of Côte d’Ivoire to illustrate key insights, but also challenges, of adopting a critical research agenda on resistance to transitional justice.