Prefiguring truth: The limits of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry

Abstract Public inquiries operate as privileged instruments of sense‐making, defined by a series of epistemological and methodological commitments. The Grenfell Tower Inquiry was established to uncover the truth of the fire in which seventy‐two people died. This article interrogates the truth‐seeking and truth‐producing practices of the Inquiry. These shape the contours of the account of the fire that it has produced, predisposing it to particular forms of explanation whilst excluding others. We describe this as a process of prefiguration in which the scope and form of the Inquiry circumscribes and foreshadows its findings. This invites us to see the Inquiry as productive of the social reality it seeks to describe, raising important questions about how the Inquiry operated and its role in shaping public understanding of truth, accountability and justice in the aftermath of the fire.