Featured Stories

Joanna Quinn’s search for truth

Print: Share:

Email:

Then a graduate student reading about South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, keen-eyed political science professor Joanna Quinn happened upon a footnote that would fundamentally alter the course of her research career forever.

There, buried at the bottom of the page, the short notation described a Truth Commission in Uganda that documented the effects of successive violent regimes led by infamous dictators Milton Obote and Idi Amin, who had ruled the country since the 1960s.

Problem was, the report had never been formally disseminated and, as such, there was very little in the way of further academic literature to pursue. No matter.

“It is infinitely more useful to compile data and provide analyses that nobody has done previously,” Quinn says.

The finding set her off on a year-and-a-half-long search for a copy of the report, which would eventually shape a significant portion of her research as a professor at Western.

At times, the pursuit seemed to borrow a page from a detective novel. Having made enquiries with colleagues around the world, Quinn was eventually able to track down, and obtain, some blurry, photocopied pages of the Truth Commission – in an exchange that took place in passing in an airport.

“I try to put together a puzzle without knowing what it is going to look like,” she says.

While their mandates can vary, truth commissions are generally struck to help countries move beyond conflict and toward resolution by investigating, revealing and recording wrongdoings committed by governments during periods of unrest, civil war and dictatorship. In an effort to improve his country’s human rights record, Uganda’s report was commissioned by then-President Yoweri Musevini in 1986, but promptly discarded.

Quinn’s quest carried her to a bug-filled closet at Makarere University in Kampala, where she found – shunted onto a water heater – the original documents and interview transcripts used to compile Uganda’s Truth Commission. She had found the academic equivalent of a jackpot. Nearly as remarkable, at a subsequent meeting with a human rights organization, Quinn later found a full stack of the published reports, sitting unopened on a bookshelf.

She says these dusty copies serve as a metaphor for the Truth Commission itself, noting that it failed in part because nothing was ever done with it.

“Truth Commissions should lead to acknowledgement of what has happened in the past so citizens can begin to put together a common account of their history and rebuild trust,” Quinn says. “Once details are out in the open, there’s often less fear and people can begin to participate in civil society.”

Despite the failure of Uganda’s Truth Commission – or more likely, because of it – Quinn continues to work at a grassroots level to help guide policy that is informed by interviews and research into affected, and often vulnerable, parties, including community leaders, students and women’s groups.

“I am getting the opinion of the people,” she says. “Nobody bought into the Truth Commission because it was carried-out in a top-down fashion, and people were not invested.”

In countries that are often unable or unwilling to properly investigate their pasts, this truth is critical in transforming societies. Given that citizens are often reluctant to speak of their experiences, which in many cases include rape and other violence, Quinn first sets out to build trust.

“I feel tremendous responsibility to these communities, as they have entrusted me with their stories and details of atrocities committed against them,” she says. “I feel I need to make good with this information.”

The authenticity of the firsthand material Quinn gleans carries weight with high-level officials with whom she works to develop policies that help countries rebuild following conflict.

“When I speak with policy makers, the stories are more real because people have sacrificed to meet with me,” she says.

“What we do in our intellectual areas is one thing, but applying research is what’s exciting,” Quinn adds. “What I do has real implications for what’s going on in the world.”

This sort of research challenges basic assumptions of why things work – or do not – in International Criminal Tribunals, and leads to the creation of better policy descriptions that help countries heal their wounds. As a result, Quinn’s efforts have wide-ranging application in areas of conflict around across the globe. Her recently published book, The Politics of Acknowledgement: Truth Commissions in Uganda and Haiti, closely examines failures in each of these two countries, and assesses how they can be improved in others.

Quinn is also Director of Western’s Centre for Transitional Justice and Post-Conflict Reconstruction, which takes an interdisciplinary approach to the University’s research strengths in international and intercultural relations, government and public policy, social change, social justice and equity. Committing to become a worldwide centre of excellence in the field, the Centre’s researchers approach complex issues related to conflict and subjugation with an understanding of the importance of transforming these situations to the benefit of international human rights.

Recently, Quinn was also tabbed to lead the formation of Western’s new Africa Institute, which has been imagined to increase cross-sectoral research collaborations for the more than 40 researchers across campus conducting research on the continent.

“If something is happening in Kenya, for example, we’ll have 5-6 people already working on the ground there and can find ways to bring others together to capitalize on opportunities,” she says. “Instead of working alone, we want to bring in people who can both support us and attract others.”

The University has already established strong connections in Africa, including through the Western Heads East project, which combines probiotic yogurt research and student service learning in an effort to combat HIV/AIDS in Tanzania and Kenya. Other ongoing initiatives are related to waste management, ecosystem health, health policy, gender studies, linguistics, refugee studies and transitional justice.

In the process, Quinn hopes the nascent institute will help build relationships, both here at Western and with colleagues in Africa, to provide learning opportunities, student exchanges, seminars and lectures that will lead to improvements around the world.

“The Africa Institute will be a great vehicle for helping me repay what people have trusted me with the past 12 years,” she says.

Print: Share:

Email:

Login to view and post comments