The ‘dead’ as agents of truth-telling: Lessons from Timor-Leste and the Indigenous repatriation movement

Abstract

Truth-telling, as it is understood within the liberal discourse and practice of transitional justice, centres around the idea of an individual human subject telling a narrative of harms that occurred in a past that is assumed now to be ‘past’. The ‘dead’ are important insofar as they provide ‘evidence’ of the suffering experienced by the living: the objects rather than subjects of truth-telling. This article draws on the cases of Timor-Leste and the international Indigenous repatriation movement to argue that decolonising truth-telling requires, in the context of Indigenous harms, an expansion of both the scope and the subjects of truth-telling. We ask: how might the dead become agents of truth-telling? We advance the argument that truth-telling needs to become a holistic and relational practice that does not disconnect the living from the dead. This is essential if truth-telling is to foster healing and justice and not perpetuate further violence.