Jennifer Balint

Justice Claims in Colonial Contexts: Commissions of Inquiry in Historical Perspective

Abstract. This paper considers the ways in which commissions of inquiry, as historical antecedents to the contemporary transitional justice mechanism of the truth commission, have been employed by colonial and former colonial powers in the past and present. Engaging with three commissions of inquiry undertaken by colonial and former colonial authorities regarding the Morant Bay Rebellion (1865), Rwandan genocide (1997) and the Coranderrk Aboriginal Reserve (1881), we demonstrate how commissions of inquiry can function to limit legal and political recognition of the underlying inequality of colonial relations and the need for broader structural reform. Despite this, we indicate the possibilities that remain in the articulation of claims to commissions of inquiry, which can open up spaces for structural injustices to be openly brought to the fore and put on record.

The ‘Minutes of Evidence’ project: Creating collaborative fields of engagement with the past, present and future

The preceding chapters of this collection demonstrate how nuanced and critically informed analyses of historical evidence can deepen and refine our understanding of nineteenth-century Victorian society. In this chapter, we seek a similar outcome; but we shift the focus towards the task of using historical materials to engage a broader public audience. In doing so we consider the potential benefits of expanding the field of engagement with the past through an innovative collaboration which aims to bring Victoria’s history ‘back to life’ through theatre; by (re)citing its historical archive, and taking the words ‘off the page’ and voicing them out loud, as Wongutha woman and actor Melodie Reynolds-Diarra puts it.