A pastoral response to some of the challenges of reconciliation in South Africa following on from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Year: 2009
Type: dissertation
Abstract: This work is concerned with healing practices that are created within a participatory framework in pastoral theology. It works in post-colonial and postapartheid \ntimes in South Africa following on from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The thesis looks to forms of participation with both victims and perpetrators of \napartheid. It seeks to challenge singular identities of victims and perpetrators, whites and blacks, which are bound up in juridical practices that are embedded \nwithin binary forms of identity. It exposes some of the problems associated with the splitting of a subject from an object of enquiry. \nThe research concerns a journey with a group of Mothers who lost their sons and husbands to the violence of the apartheid state. It is also a journey with some of \nthe perpetrators who were responsible for the elimination of these men. It seeks to deconstruct identity in order to find alternate descriptions of people, both the victims and perpetrators that are not constructed within a binary oppositional form. This is worked with ideas from the social construction movement particularly ideas relating to relational responsibility. The research attempts to create a safe enough context for accountability, vulnerability and healing to take \nplace within a participatory frame of pastoral care. It works with post-modern theology and some of the philosophy of Derrida, Foucault and Levinas.
Author: Shena Bridgid Hess
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W200436078