This section summarises the layout and contents of this thesis. Following this introduction, Chapter 2 seeks to localise victims in the post-conflict context, understanding both the impact they and their unmet needs have on prospects for peace or continued violence and reviewing the range of needs articulated by conflict victims. Global and universal human rights are compared with the local and particular needs voiced by victims. The literature on the needs of families of the Missing is then reviewed, and an argument made that victims‟ needs must be privileged in post-conflict contexts to ensure sustainable peace. Chapter 3 continues the review of relevant literature, by examining the mechanisms that have defined the praxis of transitional justice, each of which is addressed in terms of its potential to impact upon the needs of the families of the Missing, and the neglected topic of gender in transitional justice is introduced.
Chapter 4 introduces the two contexts, Nepal and Timor-Leste, studied in this thesis. For both, cultural issues are discussed, including social structures and attitudes to death that can be important in approaching the missing issue, and the histories of violence that led to persons being missing briefly outlined. The status of transitional justice in the two contexts is then presented and the literature around those processes, very modest in the case of Nepal and substantial for Timor-Leste, reviewed. The two contexts are then compared in terms of their relevance for this study: many similarities are found not least in the way in which transitional justice process is exclusively defined by elites.
Chapter 5 describes the methodology of the research, introducing the ethnographic and participatory philosophy that underlies it and the engaged, activist role of the researcher. The formal research structure, in terms of the research question and supporting propositions, is presented and the qualitative research methods (interviews and focus group discussions) outlined. Potentially problematic issues of sampling and of ethics, addressed largely through the participatory element, are discussed.
The data collected in the two contexts are presented in Chapter 6 (Nepal) and 7 (Timor-Leste). In each case this begins with a profile of the more than 150 families interviewed and a summary of the priorities they identified when asked an open question
45
about the needs arising from the disappearance. This is followed by the presentation of data concerning each of the needs discussed, using quantitative data from interviews as well as qualitative input from both interviews and focus groups, including quotations from victims. Chapter 7 includes an overview of victims‟ attitudes towards the transitional justice mechanisms that are largely complete in Timor-Leste, providing a victim-centred evaluation of the decade of transitional justice process.
Chapter 8 and Chapter 9 aim to discuss the data and draw conclusions for processes in Nepal and Timor-Leste and for transitional justice process more generally. Chapter 8 critiques the practice of transitional justice in the light of the gap seen between the needs of victims and the goals of contemporary process. It highlights the „top-down‟ nature of such process, the dependence upon the concept of truth as reconciliation and healing, the excessive legalism that defines it and the failure of reparative process to be relevant to disempowered communities. Chapter 9 seeks to use the data of the study to provide a context for transitional justice to be more relevant to victims. It outlines how and why transitional justice is a largely elite discourse and how issues that appear to be of an emotional or psychological nature for victims can have a substantial impact on the politics of memory in a society attempting to deal with a violent past. The importance of culture in such processes in traditional societies is then discussed, considering how trauma expresses itself in a society where the spirit world is important and how the rights discourse that drives transitional justice is a fundamental challenge to how traditional people conceive of their world.
The final chapter, Chapter 10, aims to make concrete proposals for the creation of victim-centred transitional process, on the basis of the data of this study. It suggests that transitional justice as a discipline is too narrow to address the needs of victims, and broader approaches, including recovery and peacebuilding must be integrated with it. A victim-centred process is conceptualised in terms of challenging liberal approaches that dominate transitional justice today and ensuring the agency of victims, through empowerment and mobilisation.
Four Appendices add further details. Appendix I discusses legal definitions of the Missing and the disappeared; Appendix II contains the research instruments, semi- structured interview scripts, used to collect data from families of the Missing in each of the two contexts; Appendix III lists the interviews and focus groups made in the two contexts; Appendix IV summarises the recommendations of the study for the
46
Governments of Nepal and Timor-Leste in terms of addressing the needs of the families of the Missing and concludes with a summary of the impact of the Action Research component of the research on legislative and other processes in both.
47