Bearing witness : women and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa / Fiona C. Ross.

People who witness acts of terror and violence are often called after the event to bear witness to what they saw. In cases where this violence is inflicted by the state upon its own people, the process of bearing witness is both politically complex and traumatic for the individual involved. Independent trials and commissions have become important mechanisms through which the truth of past violence is sought in democratising states, but to date there has been little close attention to the processes and complexity of the work of such institutions.

Fiona Ross's fascinating study of the process of bearing witness is the first book to examine the gendered dimensions of this topic from an anthropological and ethnographic viewpoint. Taking as a key example the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, Ross explores women's relationships to testimony, particularly the extent to which women avoid talking about or are silent about certain forms of violence and suffering.

Offering a wealth of first hand examples, Ross approaches a more subtle understanding of the achievements and the limitations of testimony as a measure of suffering and recovery generally. Is it, she asks, the panacea it is usually seen as? Or do conventional discourses on human rights, suffering and reconciliation oversimplify an altogether more complex and problematic process?

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Choice Review

This is a very timely and readable book about women's testimony before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Zwelethemba, Western Cape. Although written as an anthropology dissertation, it is not an ethnography of one culture but a collection of statements of activists and nonactivists who appeared before the Commission and influential women activists who did not testify. Often using the women's own words, the author describes daily state-committed violence in South Africans' lives during apartheid. Surprisingly, in their testimony the women often described the suffering of men much more than their own suffering. The Commission's findings emphasize bodily violations couched in passive terms. Ross (Univ. of Cape Town) contends the Commission and the media characterized those who testified as passive victims, whereas many of the resistors view themselves as active agents of change. Many South Africans who experienced human rights violations, especially women, are not represented in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's reports because they chose not to testify. Their silence must be taken into account and understood. Excellent case studies of individual women's backgrounds and resistance activities during the apartheid regime are provided. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. All levels/collections. R. Ellovich North Carolina State University

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