What role for social scientific research in transformative justice

Transformative justice has emerged in recent years as both a critical response to transitional justice and as a new practice agenda for addressing structural and systemic violence. This chapter aims to set out a clear role for social scientific research in transformative justice. It argues in favour of a critical social science that assists practice by rendering transparent the structural and relational dimensions of harm and developing new knowledge about ‘root causes’. Knowledge generated is useful to practitioners in several ways: by helping identify societal arrangements in need of change; by providing new insights that helps practitioners see how things can be different from what they are; and by informing strategies for action. For elaborating on how this might be done, the chapter outlines a metatheoretical framework and set of concepts that can support transformative justice research. The framework draws on insights from critical realism and systems thinking, and supports diversity in theoretical knowledge and social scientific methods. The chapter should be of interest to social researchers in the field as well as ‘justice in transition’ actors (organisations, movements and groups) that are engaged in knowledge production activities of their own.