This chapter concludes by revisiting the literature on local transitional justice to demonstrate the importance of looking at social structures and individual agency to better understand these processes and programs. I will elaborate on how recognized mechanisms in Sierra Leone were, in fact, both physically and psychologically distanced from people’s everyday priorities, further begging the question for whom these institutions implemented and why? Therefore, engaging with transitional justice mechanisms is both conceptually and practically privileged. This goes beyond simply critiquing transitional justice mechanisms to interrogate its conceptual and institutional foundations. The alternative ways people engaged with and outside of these programs demonstrate how people enacted transitions and justice on their own, often individual terms, both in relation to the conflict and other, more contemporary issues. Therefore, justice is not something to be done to or for people, as is often how the discourses have been framed with individuals as passive participants for whom justice is being served; rather, justice is something you can mobilize and do for yourself to address individual and communal needs.

This chapter provides the core argument and engages with concepts and theories relevant to the book. It begins with a comprehensive literature review of the turn to the local within transitional justice. While local transitional justice mechanisms are supposed to better align with the needs and priorities of affected populations, often these programs are measured against their own goals, or normative expectations of transitional justice, which overlooks how individuals and communities navigate these programs in multiple and diverse ways. This book examines different types of agency of Sierra Leoneans in what I refer to as recognised and unrecognised local transitional justice processes. Using Fambul Tok as an example of a recognised local transitional justice program, the book explores how various types of agency are involved in constructing and shaping local TJ programs, often resulting in a range of unintended consequences. This book builds upon scholarship in a range of disciplines including peace and conflict studies, anthropology, development, politics and social and legal studies. Ultimately, the book argues that justice does not happen to or for people, but that is an act in and of itself. It illustrates how local programs and processes actually work in practice.

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.

This chapter examines the perceptions of communities and participants where Fambul Tok works. The program was designed to provide people with ritual spaces to discuss war-related experiences, but I suggest that the vast majority of participants neither desired nor enjoyed hearing about wartime experiences. The confessions at these organization-sponsored ceremonies were performances that sought to stimulate further development opportunities. The space did, however, provide an opportunity to address other, more contemporary issues. This is exemplified through the story of a heated chieftaincy conflict. The organization’s presence and the ceremony provided a forum through which this conflict played out, exemplifying how existing social structures play a critical role in shaping local transitional justice programs. I explore how pre-existing hierarchies, social status and individual agency influenced how different people engaged with the program. This exemplifies the diversity of needs and priorities in communities and how people engage with these mechanisms for different reasons. It provides a comprehensive analysis of how local transitional justice programs shape and are shaped by the various actors at play (both staff and participants), which has implications not only for TJ mechanisms but development programs more broadly.