Conclusion: Transitional Justice in Zimbabwe—Myth or Reality?

Abstract

Challenges often occur in administering transitional justice in post-colonial states in Africa and Zimbabwe because of competing goals between state-centric and human-centred approaches. Customary justice process though plausible for communities studied in this book, they are often side-lined on the assumption that they are archaic and incompatible with human rights. What was clear in my interactions with research participants from Buhera, Mudzi and Uzumba is the idea harms pollute the cosmological community and require a concomitant tradition-based remedy. The functional value of customary justice processes covered in this book is not to only uphold the rights of an afflicted individual but to restore the psychosocial well-being of individuals in relation to their community through a holistic approach that transforms effects of violence on cosmic beings.