‘Quiet’ transitional justice as a victim-led approach to truth telling: Practice, potential and limitations

Abstract∞ In this article we examine the potential of ‘quiet’ transitional justice (QTJ) as a vehicle for efforts to address legacies of armed conflict. We explore the accounts of victims and survivors of the conflict published in memoirs that detail private engagement with non-state armed groups (NSAGs) in the pursuit of acknowledgment and truth recovery. This piece engages with critical transitional justice scholarship, narrative victimology and the role of memoirs in transitional justice to interrogate the potential of QTJ efforts, focusing on three case studies of killings from the Northern Ireland conflict: Kathleen Feeney, Michael Kearney and the Miami Showband attack. We conclude that – notwithstanding some limitations – QTJ efforts offer an alternative approach to mainstream transitional justice that is victim led, that facilitates (and depends on) meaningful engagement with NSAGs and that offers an alternative to state-led, top-down transitional justice mechanisms.