Mediating transitional justice: South Africa’s TRC in history textbooks and the implications for peace.

Transitional justice (TJ) and education have recently evolved into key areas of concern in processes of recovery undergone by societies emerging from violent conflict. Referencing the particular case of post-apartheid South Africa, this article investigates the distinct role of school textbooks as mediators of TJ in order to shed light on the under-researched interconnections between these fields. Its analysis of how South Africa’s history textbooks engage with the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission explores the discursive and pedagogical strategies they adopt as they deal with this high-profile TJ mechanism. The article’s theorisation will consider textbooks’ possible dual function as both instruments and indicators of broader post-conflict transformation by assessing the possibilities offered by a pedagogical model of TJ education involving history textbooks as ‘heteroglossic spaces’ and as ‘mediators of multivocal discourses’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]