Ms. Adichie is a storyteller. She uses her own story to illustrate her struggles to find her authentic voice as an author, despite being surrounded by a literary world that did not contain representations of African women. She speaks about the danger of imposing a simplified narrative upon another, and the impoverishment that results from stereotypes. Ms Achibie explains that power is the power to tell a story about another person, and to make that story the definitive story. For example, the single story of the 'discovery' of America affirms the supremacy of the colonizer, while at the same time negating the relevance of the Indigenous peoples of North America. Though they have negative potential, she points out that stories also have the power to transform and humanize.
It is often the case that victim reparations processes such as truth commissions have the goal of deconstructing 'the single story' held by one community about another. They also have the goal of developing a complex understanding of particular events that have damaged the social fabric, in order to avoid recurrence. These processes are spaces to create a multiplicity of narratives in order re-establish a sense of common humanity, as well as accountability. Though Ms Adichie is not speaking about the work of truth commissions, I thought her talk was a particularly excellent articulation of the type of approach that is possible when truth commissions take statements.
The challenge, however, is that truth commissions themselves can fall into creating another 'single story' through their work. Though tasked with collecting multiple statements, they may feel the need to simplify what they have heard in order to create an effective counter-narrative. I think the lesson learned from Ms Adichie is this: in order to break the 'dehumanizing gaze' generated by the single story, truth commissions should build into their report an emphasis on the diversity of experiences around the events they are exploring.
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