INSTITUTE FOR JUSTICE AND RECONCILIATION OCCASIONAL PAPER NUMBER 19 South Africa over revisiting the promise of reconciliation made in the 1990s it is an opportune time to reflect on how reconciliation could better confront histories of gendered harms. Gender and the Politics of Reconciliation May 2016 Dr Helen Scanlon1 As such this article seeks to explore four central areas. First, it is critical to understand the contestations over interpretations of “reconciliation” and how ideology and politics interface within this widely bandied term. Once some of the broader criticisms of reconciliation have been outlined the paper locates how, why and in what form gender issues have emerged in discussions of reconciliation. In particualar it will explore how, when gender has emerged in debates around reconciliation, stereotypes of women as peace-builders and sexual violence as the primary form of gender-based violations, have been rife. Third, it examines how local processes have been deployed and promoted in discussions on reconciliation. Finally, a lens is placed on South Africa as both the location of the promotion of discourses of reconciliation but also the site of pervasive gender-based harms in the post apartheid era. The manner in which a country emerging from conflict or authoritarian rule interacts with its history can create the foundation upon which its future is built.2 An effective “reckoning” with the harms of the past is a critical tool for the promotion of reconciliation. While a contested term, reconciliation has the potential to fulfil a number of practical and symbolic purposes through acknowledging the harm inflicted upon victims and promoting social equity and human rights. According to gender activists, effective reconciliation can facilitate the transformation of socio-cultural injustices and inequalities and this, in turn, can stimulate greater gender equality. Ultimately, a gender perspective is critical to fully understand which sectors of society need to be reconciled, as well as how this can best be accomplished. Indeed, as Brandon Hamber and Gráinne Kelly contend, beyond the processes employed to facilitate reconciliation, its realisation requires changes in the attitudes and conduct of a society, as well the confrontation of inequalities.3 Defining Reconciliation Since the late 1980s the concept of reconciliation has become fundamentally linked to international and national peacebuilding initiatives in post-conflict and post-authoritarian societies. The term was most widely commercialised in the 1990s by South Africa’s transition from apartheid through both the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and its associated visions of ubuntu and the “rainbow nation”. Broadly defined, reconciliation has been viewed as a tool to assist societies that have experiences of historic oppression through structural injustices, direct physical harm and/ or the suppression of group identities, and it is a process or set of practices intended to challenge these injustices and re-build relationships.6 Among its broad interpretations is the aim “to render no longer opposed” or as Johan Galtung observes “reconciliation is a theme with deep psychological, sociological, theological, philosophical and profoundly human roots - and nobody really knows how to successfully achieve it”.7 Nonetheless, as Nicola Henry and others point out, the meaning of reconciliation is often ambiguous and it has a variety of “psycho-therapeutic, religious and cultural applications and connotations”.4 Andrew Schaap has identified a number of inherent problems associated with interpretations of reconciliation. These include “its vagueness in meaning; its incompatibility with modern pluralistic societies; its presumption about pre-existing harmonious relationships; its assimilative drive; its demands for closure; and its exculpatory redemption of the state and nation”.5 Critiques of reconciliation often stem from alarm over the frequent politicisation of reconciliation processes and the co-option of practises by elites. Fear has also been expressed in South Africa and beyond that existing interpretations of reconciliation have imposed undue burden on victims as those most responsible for the restoration and transformation of society. Furthermore, it is argued that the versions of reconciliation employed to date have simply contributed to shifts in the “geography of violence” whereby the veneer of peace-building has masked the increase of interpersonal violence. Each of these criticisms has profoundly gendered associations. In 2004 Brandon Hamber and Gráinne Kelly developed five guiding principles to frame processes of reconciliation. These include advancing a “shared vision” of the future of a society, acknowledging and dealing with the past, building “positive” relationships, realising “significant cultural and attitudinal change” and attaining substantial social, economic and political change.8 Hamber and Kelly’s principles can be placed in the larger context of developments in the theory and practice of reconciliation over the last three decades. Marita Eastmond has noted how during this period reconciliation has emerged as “a master narrative of our time, offering a promise to remedy the harm done and heal both society and individuals from the experience of violence and conflict”.9 Eastmond also contends that discussions around reconciliation have become “embedded in a global moral discourse of social healing” that “invokes the notion of common humanity”.10 The accompanying ideals of a This paper will take a critical look at attempts to confront abusive pasts through the promotion of ideals of reconciliation and assess how far their “symbolic” purpose has been realised. In particular, it will examine the nexus between gender justice and reconciliation in order to assess and consider ways to re-calibrate engagement with ongoing reconciliation processes. Given current debates in 1