Description
This paper will explore the relationship between scandals and justice, with a specific focus on what our involvement in scandals says about our understanding of justice and the expectations we place on them. From this, it will identify the types of symbolic justice that can be enacted through a politics of scandals and how these relate to the possibility of emancipatory change. These three forms of justices are identified as follows: an exemplary form justice focused on gaging the need for accountability and retribution; a redemptive form of justice preoccupied with the redemption of the idealised identity of the community; and finally, a justice that is closer to a form of critical thinking. These forms of justice, more often than not, coexist and should not be seen as mutually exclusive. Rather, their meshing is a distinctive feature of scandals that helps us understand how they come to be invested as both moments of speaking truth to power, creating space for emancipatory actions, and moments when norms and social cohesion are reinforced.
