Performing Transitional Justice

Abstract This chapter invites critical scrutiny of the role of performance ethnography in development praxis, focusing specifically on the place of ethnomusicology in current discourses about alternative frameworks for transitional justice in post-conflict and fragile states. The paper responds to the increasing appeal in transitional justice literature for legal pluralism and reflects on the challenges and opportunities that traditional justice strategies pose for many of the fundamental assumptions that currently underlie post-conflict rule-of-law work. Taking direction from Brown et al. (2011) and Mignolo (2013), who call for imaginative “delinking” from current epistemic hegemonies in seeking solutions to pressing societal problems, the chapter argues for greater consideration of culture in responding to the multidimensional legacies of protracted conflict (Rush & Simić 2014). Drawing on research on Dinka ox-songs in South Sudan—a country that emerged from half a century of civil war with Sudan, but remains profoundly destabilized by internecine violence—the paper argues that in their capacity as public hearings, ox-songs offer locally embedded judicial instruments or “justice rituals” (Rossner 2013) of narration, listening, and understanding, opening discursive spaces for the expression of multiple public positions and forms of agency. While songs recount individual, clan, or community memories within the context of culturally legitimate expressive spaces, they equally reveal potentially incompatible rejoinders to social justice, forgiveness, and inclusivity, thus supporting new pathways for hybrid or plural frameworks for truth-telling, justice, and reparative outcomes.