A cat-and-Maus game: the politics of truth and reconciliation in post-conflict comics

Journal article


Redwood, H. and Wedderburn, A. (2019). A cat-and-Maus game: the politics of truth and reconciliation in post-conflict comics. Review of International Studies. 45 (4), pp. 588-606. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0260210519000147
AuthorsRedwood, H. and Wedderburn, A.
Abstract

Several scholars have raised concerns that the institutional mechanisms through which transitional justice is commonly promoted in post-conflict societies can alienate affected populations. Practitioners have looked to bridge this gap by developing ‘outreach’ programmes, in some instances commissioning comic books in order to communicate their findings to the people they seek to serve. In this article, we interrogate the ways in which post-conflict comics produce meaning about truth, reconciliation and the possibilities of peace, focusing in particular on a comic strip published in 2005 as part of the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report into the causes and crimes of the 1991-2002 Civil War. Aimed at Sierra Leonean teenagers, the Report tells the story of ‘Sierrarat’, a peaceful nation of rats whose idyllic lifestyle is disrupted by an invasion of cats. Although the Report displays striking formal similarities with Art Spiegelman’s Maus (a text also intimately concerned with reconciliation, in its own way), it does so to very different ends. The article brings these two texts into dialogue in order to explore the aesthetic politics of truth and reconciliation, and to ask what role popular visual media like comics can play in their practice and (re)conceptualisation.

KeywordsVisual global politics; popular culture; transitional justice; outreach; Sierra Leone; Maus
Year2019
JournalReview of International Studies
Journal citation45 (4), pp. 588-606
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP)
ISSN0260-2105
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1017/S0260210519000147
Publication dates
Online14 May 2019
Publication process dates
Deposited24 Apr 2021
Accepted author manuscript
License
File Access Level
Open
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RIS article no Maus pictures final edit.docx
License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
File access level: Open

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