The role of archives and archivists in transitional justice: a comparative study of Northern Ireland and post-reunification Germany

Archival records assist efforts to hold perpetrators to account and to establish the truth about past conflict; new archival repositories can function as a form of memorialisation; and archives may also document the transitional justice process itself. Recent research has begun to articulate the conceptual framework for the role of archives in transitional justice, with a specific focus on local transitional justice processes.

This thesis expands and develops this work, using a comparative approach to delineate the key factors determining the role of archives and archivists in the theory and practice of transitional justice. By employing an actor-focussed oral history methodology, it examines how archivists engage with transitional justice processes through their archives. The thesis offers new insights into the relationship between archives and transitional justice and nuances core assumptions about neutrality and objectivity.