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.

中文翻译：

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“死者”作为讲真话的代理人：东帝汶和土著遣返运动的教训


正如自由主义话语和过渡正义实践中所理解的那样，讲真话的中心思想是，个体人类主体讲述发生在现在被认为是“过去”的过去的伤害。 “死者”很重要，因为他们提供了生者所经历的痛苦的“证据”：是说真话的对象而不是主体。本文借鉴东帝汶和国际原住民遣返运动的案例，认为在原住民受到伤害的情况下，非殖民化的讲真话需要扩大讲真话的范围和主题。我们问：死者如何成为讲真话的代理人？我们提出这样的论点：讲真话需要成为一种整体性和相关性的实践，不会将生者与死者分开。如果说真话是为了促进治愈和伸张正义，而不是使进一步的暴力永久化，这一点至关重要。