Transitional Justice against the State

Lessons from Spanish Civil Society-Led Forensic Exhumations

Bibliographic Data

ID12915412
AuthorsJoan Rubin (corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume8
Issue1
Pages99-120
Publication date2014-02-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal of Transitional Justice (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1752-7716 • E-ISSN: 1752-7724
PublisherOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/ijtj/ijt033
OpenAlexW1984427764
LanguageEN
Citations received13

Inspired by forensic exhumations that have occurred in the context of transitional justice processes elsewhere, Spanish civil society associations since 2000 have helped relatives of the disappeared locate, exhume and honor those who were killed in the Spanish Civil War and the ensuing Francisco Franco dictatorship. In the process, they have creatively adopted, applied and reinterpreted practices originally developed for state-led democratic transitions to civil society initiatives. In this article, I explore the ways transitional justice concepts take on a social life beyond their juridical applications. In so doing, I take these exhumations as an opportunity to examine some of the tensions between the bureaucratic state-led models of transitional justice that inspired Spanish activists and the civil society reinterpretations that mark forensic practice in contemporary Spain. The practice of Spanish organizations offers new avenues for understanding and ameliorating the tense relationship between the bureaucratic and legal needs of forensic exhumations and the desires and expectations of victims.2

Bureaucracy · Civil society · Context (archaeology · Criminology · Democracy · Dictatorship · Economic Justice · Honor · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · State (computer science · Transitional justice · Law in Society and Culture · History · Law

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