Bearing Witness

Fiona Ross's fascinating study of the process of bearing witness is the first to examine the gendered dimensions of this topic from an anthropological and ethnographic viewpoint. Following the work of the Truth and reconciliation commission in South Africa, she explores how its emphasis on apartheid's spectacular dimensions had the effect of silencing and eliding women's political activities and their efforts to create social worlds in conditions of terrible constraint, framing women as victims instead. The book offers a subtle understanding of the achievements and limitations of testimony and human rights discourse as measures of suffering and recovery.