Social Sustainability

Truth and Reconciliation

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Definition

Truth and reconciliation refers to processes — typically commissions — established after periods of systematic abuse to establish the historical record, acknowledge victims, and recommend redress and reform, prioritising truth-telling and healing alongside or instead of prosecution. Originating with South Africa's post-apartheid TRC, the model has been applied to Indigenous peoples' treatment (Canada's TRC on residential schools) and is invoked in environmental and climate justice for historical harms from dispossession to pollution.

References

nctr.caBulk import source

Source imported for editorial provenance.

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This reference provides supporting context for how “Truth and Reconciliation” is defined and used.

Overview

How it is used

The framework structures transitional justice, Indigenous-Crown/settler relations, museum and heritage restitution debates, and reparative approaches to environmental harm.

Why it matters

Justice delayed and denied is not neutral — it compounds; truth and reconciliation is the machinery societies have built to begin undoing that.