Discursive institutions in non-transitional societies: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada

Abstract

This paper examines truth and reconciliation processes in stable, democratic societies. Its focus is on the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, which assumed that historical knowledge can lead directly to new understanding and then to reconciliation, a social change involving improved relations between Aboriginal and other peoples. The paper argues that institutions such as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada – here called discursive institutions – require more careful explanations of how discourse might be related to change. Discursive institutions mobilize prior orientations and existing social, cultural and institutional levers for change; they do not create new mechanisms for doing so.