Despite the proliferation of transitional justice, scholars have rarely researched the emotional toll on those who implement transitional justice mechanisms. This article accordingly examines the emotion management techniques employed by eighty-five judges who served in Rwanda’s post-genocide gacaca courts. Most of the intrapersonal and interpersonal emotion management strategies we find are gendered, with men generally emphasizing strength and women underscoring empathy and understanding. Moreover, the dimensions of identity that were most salient during the conflict also shaped the judges’ interpersonal emotion management strategies. Specifically, judges who were not targeted during the genocide focused on regulating emotions tied to punishing defendants, while judges who were targeted emphasized survivors’ emotional catharses. As such, our findings show how conflict divisions and gender norms structure the expression of emotion during transitional justice processes.

尽管过渡司法不断涌现，但学者们很少研究过渡司法机制实施者的情感损失。因此，本文探讨了在卢旺达种族灭绝后加卡卡法庭任职的 85 名法官所采用的情绪管理技巧。我们发现的大多数内心和人际情绪管理策略都是有性别差异的，男性通常强调力量，女性强调同理心和理解。此外，冲突期间最突出的身份维度也影响了法官的人际情绪管理策略。具体来说，在种族灭绝期间没有成为目标的法官专注于调节与惩罚被告相关的情绪，而成为目标的法官则强调幸存者的情绪宣泄。因此，我们的研究结果表明，冲突分歧和性别规范如何在过渡司法过程中构建情感表达。