The Malleability of Transitional Justice

Transitional justice began with mothers marching on the Plaza de Mayo and survivors searching for their dead. It returned to them as a UN toolkit with fixed pillars. Today, critics say the field has reached an impasse. In Guatemala’s Maya Ixil region, genocide survivors are reclaiming it anyway. They are building their own archives and museums, where hunger, harm to the land and five centuries of dispossession are part of the record.