How grassroots truth and reconciliation commissions can help activists to reclaim their communities and advance social justice.

In the past 18 months, the prevalence of violence, racial injustice and inequality in many communities has come to the fore in the minds of politicians and policymakers in the US. But what if we look to communities themselves for ways of addressing these problems? Joshua F.J. Inwood and Derek Alderman look at how community truth and reconciliation commissions can work to build grassroots responses to difficult local conditions at the same time as the welfare state is retreating. They write that the state’s retreat, while making marginal lives more vulnerable, has opened up new opportunities for activists to develop innovative strategies for achieving social justice.