This chapter concludes by revisiting the literature on local transitional justice to demonstrate the importance of looking at social structures and individual agency to better understand these processes and programs. I will elaborate on how recognized mechanisms in Sierra Leone were, in fact, both physically and psychologically distanced from people’s everyday priorities, further begging the question for whom these institutions implemented and why? Therefore, engaging with transitional justice mechanisms is both conceptually and practically privileged. This goes beyond simply critiquing transitional justice mechanisms to interrogate its conceptual and institutional foundations. The alternative ways people engaged with and outside of these programs demonstrate how people enacted transitions and justice on their own, often individual terms, both in relation to the conflict and other, more contemporary issues. Therefore, justice is not something to be done to or for people, as is often how the discourses have been framed with individuals as passive participants for whom justice is being served; rather, justice is something you can mobilize and do for yourself to address individual and communal needs.

This chapter provides the core argument and engages with concepts and theories relevant to the book. It begins with a comprehensive literature review of the turn to the local within transitional justice. While local transitional justice mechanisms are supposed to better align with the needs and priorities of affected populations, often these programs are measured against their own goals, or normative expectations of transitional justice, which overlooks how individuals and communities navigate these programs in multiple and diverse ways. This book examines different types of agency of Sierra Leoneans in what I refer to as recognised and unrecognised local transitional justice processes. Using Fambul Tok as an example of a recognised local transitional justice program, the book explores how various types of agency are involved in constructing and shaping local TJ programs, often resulting in a range of unintended consequences. This book builds upon scholarship in a range of disciplines including peace and conflict studies, anthropology, development, politics and social and legal studies. Ultimately, the book argues that justice does not happen to or for people, but that is an act in and of itself. It illustrates how local programs and processes actually work in practice.