Theories of change for human rights and for development

Few human rights agencies work with an explicit theory of change. It is much more common for agencies to have an implicit, partially formed theory of change. Eyben et al. (2008, 202–3) place an ‘archetypes framework’ in this category – change is implicitly thought to come about through some takenfor-granted conventional wisdom (enlightened elites, new laws, people in the streets, a good example, a shock to the system, etc.). The objective of this chapter is to explore what might be gained by bringing these implicit, partially formed theories of change to light within human rights practice

Transitional Justice and Theories of Change : towards evaluation as understanding

This article has two goals. First, to make explicit the theories of change currently operative within transitional justice and, second, to critically engage with both these theories, and dominant theories in international development. As such, it seeks to replace a focus on results, attribution, and linearity with a privileging of process, contribution and complexity. Developing theories of change for transitional justice is challenging, as it is characterised by diverse interventions, complex and contested contexts, and the need to balance principles and pragmatism. Normative, linear and mechanism-based claims remain dominant, while the evidence base for transitional justice is still weak. This article looks at insights from adjacent fields, some of the challenges facing the development of theories of change within transitional justice, and evidence from impact studies and evaluations. In a final section we propose an alternative, drawing on complexity theory and actor-oriented approaches, which suggest an important set of terms – systems, interaction, contingency, context, encounter, emergence, incrementalism – to inform what we term evaluation as understanding

South African life stories under apartheid: Imprisonment, exile, homecoming.

Apartheid South Africa was variously imprisoned, exiled, and engaged in the task of homecoming. This troika permeated society as reality, symbol and creative capital; as a political reality each of the experiences distilled the diverse human possibilities and potentials of apartheid. This is a study of the linked political encounters of detention/imprisonment, exile and homecoming, as well as the more general dynamics of oppression and resistance and the culture of violence, through the life story genre. Within the dynamics of struggle the focus of the thesis is on the transformative nature of resistance, in particular auto/biographical counter-discourses, as a means through which opponents of apartheid retained/regained agency and power. The main aim of the thesis is to articulate and apply a theory of life story praxis in the context of political contestation. The theory has five main components. Firstly, the life story in such contexts is marked by the imperative for narratives to be provisional, partial, tactical, to be managed in accordance with an evolving political purpose. The second component relates to the violent collaboration of state and opponent in identity construction and interpretation. This argument facilitates, as the third theoretical premise, a broad definition of texts that either are auto/biographical or impact upon the context and process of narration. Fourthly, lives are told many times over, identities are repeatedly un/remade, within an arena that is dense with prior versions and/or a discursive void. Finally, I argue that the ownership and meaning of life story narratives are provisional and contested while retaining a dominant narrative and political truth. In the main body of the thesis this theory is applied to the life stories of incarceration, exile, and homecoming

From agency to root causes: addressing structural barriers to transformative justice in transitional and post-conflict settings

Transformative justice has emerged as a new practice agenda for addressing structural and systemic violence in post-conflict and post-authoritarian societies. This article is situated at a critical juncture: while the emerging scholarship has focussed on community agency and action, there is little as yet that has explored the social structures and relations in transition societies that are harm-generating and which constrain action. We argue that a critical social science, grounded in realist social theory, systems thinking and complexity theory, have a vital role to play in rendering transparent the relations and structures that resist change. New knowledge about the ‘root causes’ of harm is both conceptually innovative and useful to practice, helping practitioners identify societal arrangements in need of change and informing strategies for action. This article illustrates the approach through its application to a study with poor farmers in post-Revolution Tunisia. The article should be of interest to researchers and practitioners in transitional and transformative justice, conflict and post-conflict, peacebuilding, and security sector reform, who are engaged with understanding and addressing issues of structural and systemic violence

From human rights documentation towards arts-based interventions: NGO collaborations with artists and the reimagining of human rights

This article is grounded in ‘human rights practice’ and explores innovations in human rights approaches – specifically arts-based innovations – in the context of multiple contemporary crises, and in particular populism’s assault on truth. Assumptions underpinning human rights truth-telling – that the truth and knowledge are the foundations for change, and that the law and reporting are vehicles for change – are increasingly being challenged. The article argues that the arts add value to emerging human rights strategies in three ways: broadening truths and telling more diverse stories; reaching new audiences and opening spaces for engagement; and imagining alternative futures and narratives. Further arguments made in the article include the assertion that reports remain important as a source of legitimacy and credibility, bestowing ‘inherited legitimacy’ on other outputs (arts, social media); that collaborations between NGOs and artists seek to protect the core or foundation of human rights work (testimony, reports); and that further conceptual and practical work is needed to address a new landscape of denial (‘flipped’ denial, denial of the category of truth itself, narrative denial). These arguments draw on interviews with Israeli NGOs, conducted prior to the war beginning in 2023, but the arguments are of broad relevance to human rights research and practice

Universities unbound:Universities as sites of human rights activism and protection in an era of democratic crisis

This article champions the potential for universities to play an enhanced role supporting human rights activism and protection in the context of democratic crisis. The challenges such an agenda faces are significant. In addition to global trends such as democratic backsliding and shrinking civic and political space, universities themselves exhibit “two faces,” as sites of violence and exclusion as well as of more progressive values, and are caught between the pincer movement of privatization and increasing state interference. However, universities often enjoy more autonomy than civil society groups. Drawing on core values such as academic freedom and social justice, and particular qualities—legitimacy, status, access to knowledge, resources, and local and global networks—universities have both the potential and the responsibility to act. The article identifies four roles universities can play in relation to activism and protection: instigators, incubators (of ideas, values, and organizations), collaborators, and protectors. Three forms of protection—of people, values, and knowledge—are interdependent, with activists more likely to feel protected if their values and knowledge are reflected within universities. Ultimately, if universities do not support others, who will be left to defend them when attacks intensify on universities themselves

Transitional Justice from the Margins : Collective Reparations and Tunisia's Truth and Dignity Commission

The Tunisian revolution of 2011 moved from socio-economic to political concerns, and from the margins and periphery of the South and West of the country to the centre, Tunis, driven by the slogan of “jobs, dignity and freedom”. The goal of this article is to understand the potential of using the spatially informed concept of marginalisation to reimagine transitional justice, using the “victim zone” as a case study. The Truth and Dignity Commission's founding legislation tasked it with identifying victim zones that had “suffered systematic marginalisation or exclusion” and proposing reparation for structural violations suffered. Empirical data collected from two disadvantaged regions of Tunisia are used to provide a bottom-up, victim-centred, look at structural and economic violence. The IVD has largely failed to-date to deliver on its promise in relation to collective reparations, but a combination of theory and empirical data provides a springboard for a discussion of how the margins could unsettle current transitional justice practice, both normatively and practically. The article concludes by outlining an unfinished business agenda for Tunisia and implications for future transitional justice. Specifically, it argues for a transitional justice from the margins that focuses on space as well as time, collectives as well as individuals, a normative plurality rather than a single universalised global framework, decentralised agency rather than centralised institutional primacy, and a new social contract (forms of participation and recognition) rather than the continuity of elite bargains

The cultural politics of human rights and neoliberalism

Do human rights offer the potential to challenge neo-liberalism? I argue that rather than understanding human rights as ideology, as obscuring or legitimating neo-liberalism, it is more productive to see both human rights and neo-liberalism as hegemonic projects. In this article I explore convergences and divergences between dominant discourses and practices of human rights and neo-liberalism around key ideas ‘the state’, ‘the individual’ and ‘the nation’, to clear a space for appreciation of the cultural politics of human rights: divergences in constructions of responsibility and hierarchies of value of concrete individuals offer openings for challenging ideas and practices of neo-liberalism through campaigns for human rights