3 - Deconstructing Fambul Tok’s Discourse and Practice

Summary

This chapter begins exploring Fambul Tok’s program. It looks at how the organization illustrates the different ways they project themselves as local and what this says about the reproduction of common local tropes by people who know and understand this vernacular, namely by highlighting national identity – Sierra Leonean – and cultural and traditional practices by examining the materials they produced. This is contrasted with ethnographic observations, which explored how the organization actually operated on a daily basis, looking in particular at the interactions and hierarchies both within the organization, between staff and program participants. Exploring these interactions demonstrates how local transitional justice organizations also create and reinforce internal societal hierarchies, mirroring international-local hierarchies. Thus, knowledge of transitional justice and how the local is constructed within TJ programs is its own form of power. Exploring how the agency is employed by different people in different contexts enriches how we understand the micro-dynamics of power, knowledge and discourse within post-conflict contexts.