The DOI matches its Crossref record; 11 of the 11 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
The Anatomy of Apology and Forgiveness: Towards Transformative Apology and Forgiveness
Open accessAbstract
The central thesis of this article is that while apology and forgiveness are vital for dealing with a violent past, there is a need to critically transform the sociopolitical epistemic subjectivities that underpin a wrongdoing. These include political discourses, narratives, ideas and ideologies that justified the wrongdoing in the first place and are thus its bedrock. This is against the understanding that brutality and violence are sustained by particular epistemologies, logics and reasonings. Failure to bring about their transformation results in not stopping the repetition of brutality and not realizing sustainable reconciliation, as well as stifling key aspects of dealing with the past, such as truth seeking, truth telling, justice and accountability. By drawing on the state-sponsored massacres in Matabeleland and Midlands provinces in Zimbabwe in the early 1980s – the Gukurahundi massacres – this article argues that current calls for, and implementations of, apologies and forgiveness are often undertaken without considering the need to transform the epistemic bedrock of conflict and violence which engenders apology and forgiveness. This lack of focus on transformation makes apology and forgiveness susceptible to abuse or underutilization, and thus impotent in facilitating sustainable reconciliation. The article emphasizes the need to transform the cognitive and epistemic subjectivities underpinning wrongdoing, thus making a case for transformative apology and forgiveness.
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“The inherent limitations of monetary compensation have led to symbolic forms of redress emerging, with apology being increasingly recognised in the restorative justice (Van Ness, 2002;Pemberton et al., 2007) and transitional justice (Tarusarira, 2019) literatures.”
From The Zemiological Afterlife of Wrongful Conviction: Spoiled Identity, Repair and Survivorship (2024) · cites this paper as Tarusarira, 2019
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Cites
Tutu, A. D. (1999) · New Perspectives Quarterly · doi:10.1111/j.1540-5842.1999.tb00012.x · Cited by 2,964
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Responsibility and the moral sentiments
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Unspeakable Truths: Transitional Justice and the Challenge of Truth Commissions
Hayner, P. B. (2000) · Medical Entomology and Zoology · Cited by 776
The Psychology of Interpersonal Forgiveness
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Silence as Possibility in Postwar Everyday Life
Eastmond, M., & Selimovic, J. M. (2012) · International Journal of Transitional Justice · doi:10.1093/ijtj/ijs026 · Cited by 157
A Moral Theory of Political Reconciliation
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SHADOWS OF WAR: A Social History of Silence in the Twentieth Century
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Lawther, C. (2012) · International Journal of Transitional Justice · doi:10.1093/ijtj/ijs029 · Cited by 59
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- 45 Kenneth I. Pargament and Mark S. Rye, 'Forgiveness as a Method of Religious Coping,' in Worthington, supra n 41; Norvin Richards, Humility (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1992); Alice T. Clark, 'Humility,' in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, vol. 1 , ed. Daniel H. Ludlow (New York: Macmillan, 1992); June P. Tangney, 'Humility,' in The Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology , ed. Shane J. Lopez and Charles R. Snyder (London: Oxford University Press, 2002).
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Rabaan, H. (2021) · ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) · doi:10.1145/3462204.3481797 · Cited by 18
McAlinden, A. (2023) · International Review of Victimology · doi:10.1177/02697580231162383 · Cited by 16
Intimate racism from one's partner in young intercultural couples
Yampolsky, M. A., Rossini, A., Pagé, J., Leanza, Y., & Lalonde, R. N. (2022) · Journal of Social Issues · doi:10.1111/josi.12558 · Cited by 18
Schaafsma, J., Zoodsma, M., & Sagherian-Dickey, T. M. (2021) · Journal of Human Rights · doi:10.1080/14754835.2021.1977919 · Cited by 15
Metadata
- Authors
- Tarusarira, J.
- Affiliations
- University of Groningen (NL)
- Corresponding author
- Tarusarira, Joram
- ORCID
- Tarusarira, Joram
- Venue
- International Journal of Transitional Justice
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2019-04-09
- Volume
- 13
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 206-224
- ISSN
- 1752-7716 (ISSN-L)
- 1752-7724
- OpenAlex
- W2936162672
- Cited by
- 55
- References
- 11
- Citations by year
- 2026: 12 · 2025: 18 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 2
- FWCI
- 16.92
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- International Journal of Transitional Justice (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- University of Groningen research database (University of Groningen / Centre for Information Technology) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- Universität Leipzig
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › War, Law, and Justice
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History › Memory, violence, and history
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Forgiveness and Related Behaviors
- Keywords
- state violence, epistemic subjectivity, political discourse, justification of wrongdoing, reconciliation, truth-seeking, truth-telling, justice and accountability, transitional justice, Zimbabwe
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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
