Constructing Victimhood

Constructing Victimhood PDF Author: Cheryl Lawther
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192661450
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
Constructing Victimhood seeks to go 'beyond innocence and guilt' to expand the criminological, victimological, and transitional justice image of who we 'see' as victims, what we 'hear' as experiences of victimisation, and who makes these determinations. The book argues that the construction, reproduction, and politicisation of victimhood is structured not only by notions of innocence and guilt and the existence of complex victims, but by larger questions concerning the existence of complex hierarchies of victimhood that supersede simplistic notions of 'good' and 'bad' victims. Lawther also considers the exercise of voice, the role of silence and the silencing of certain variants of victimhood (in gender-based crimes for example), the politicisation of victims' groups and the impact of unresolved legacies of violent conflict. The author argues that in the failure to cast the transitional justice gaze more widely it is not only the 'voices in the cracks' that will be overlooked, but entire experiences of victimhood and victimisation. If transitional justice is to live up to its claims of being 'victim centred', widening its conceptual and practical boundaries to recognise the multiple and overlapping variables that construct and reproduce victimhood is essential. Pursuing this line of enquiry, Constructing Victimhood aims to change our understanding of victimhood in post-conflict and transitional contexts.

Constructing Victimhood

Constructing Victimhood PDF Author: Cheryl Lawther
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192661450
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Get Book Here

Book Description
Constructing Victimhood seeks to go 'beyond innocence and guilt' to expand the criminological, victimological, and transitional justice image of who we 'see' as victims, what we 'hear' as experiences of victimisation, and who makes these determinations. The book argues that the construction, reproduction, and politicisation of victimhood is structured not only by notions of innocence and guilt and the existence of complex victims, but by larger questions concerning the existence of complex hierarchies of victimhood that supersede simplistic notions of 'good' and 'bad' victims. Lawther also considers the exercise of voice, the role of silence and the silencing of certain variants of victimhood (in gender-based crimes for example), the politicisation of victims' groups and the impact of unresolved legacies of violent conflict. The author argues that in the failure to cast the transitional justice gaze more widely it is not only the 'voices in the cracks' that will be overlooked, but entire experiences of victimhood and victimisation. If transitional justice is to live up to its claims of being 'victim centred', widening its conceptual and practical boundaries to recognise the multiple and overlapping variables that construct and reproduce victimhood is essential. Pursuing this line of enquiry, Constructing Victimhood aims to change our understanding of victimhood in post-conflict and transitional contexts.

Innocence and Victimhood

Innocence and Victimhood PDF Author: Elissa Helms
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Pres
ISBN: 0299295532
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
The 1992–95 war in Bosnia-Herzegovina following the dissolution of socialist Yugoslavia became notorious for “ethnic cleansing” and mass rapes targeting the Bosniac (Bosnian Muslim) population. Postwar social and political processes have continued to be dominated by competing nationalisms representing Bosniacs, Serbs, and Croats, as well as those supporting a multiethnic Bosnian state, in which narratives of victimhood take center stage, often in gendered form. Elissa Helms shows that in the aftermath of the war, initiatives by and for Bosnian women perpetuated and complicated dominant images of women as victims and peacemakers in a conflict and political system led by men. In a sober corrective to such accounts, she offers a critical look at the politics of women’s activism and gendered nationalism in a postwar and postsocialist society. Drawing on ethnographic research spanning fifteen years, Innocence and Victimhood demonstrates how women’s activists and NGOs responded to, challenged, and often reinforced essentialist images in affirmative ways, utilizing the moral purity associated with the position of victimhood to bolster social claims, shape political visions, pursue foreign funding, and wage campaigns for postwar justice. Deeply sensitive to the suffering at the heart of Bosnian women’s (and men’s) wartime experiences, this book also reveals the limitations to strategies that emphasize innocence and victimhood.

Narrating Victimhood

Narrating Victimhood PDF Author: Michaela Schäuble
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 9781782382607
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 374

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Book Description
Mythologies and narratives of victimisation pervade contemporary Croatia, set against a backdrop of militarised notions of masculinity and the political mobilisation of religion and nationhood. Based on fieldwork in rural Dalmatia in the Croatian-Bosnian border region, this book provides a unique account of the politics of ambiguous Europeanness from the perspective of those living at Europe's margins. Tackling unresolved questions about fragmentation, transitoriness, belonging, and boundaries, Narrating Victimhood examines the continuing contestations over truth, history, and memory that have helped shape this region.

Good Victims

Good Victims PDF Author: Roxani Krystalli
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197764568
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
As of 2023, over nine million Colombians have secured official recognition as victims of an armed conflict that has lasted decades. The category of "victim" is not a mere description of having suffered harm, but a political status and a potential site of power. In Good Victims, Roxani Krystalli investigates the politics of victimhood as a feminist question. Based on in-depth engagement in Colombia over the course of a decade, Krystalli argues for the possibilities of politics through, rather than in opposition to, the status of "victim." Encompassing acts of care, agency, and haunting, the politics of victimhood entangle people who identify as victims, researchers, and transitional justice professionals. Krystalli shows how victimhood becomes a pillar of reimagining the state in the wake of war, and of bringing a vision of that state into being through bureaucratic encounters. Good Victims also sheds light on the ethical and methodological dilemmas that arise when contemplating the legacies of transitional justice mechanisms.

Victim-Centred Peacemaking

Victim-Centred Peacemaking PDF Author: Roddy Brett
Publisher: Policy Press
ISBN: 152923882X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
Based on unique empirical research into Colombia’s Santos-FARC-EP peace process (2012-2016), this book interrogates how, if at all, survivors and victims may assert agency and contribute to formal peacemaking and transitional justice initiatives. The book argues that victim inclusion meaningfully transformed victim-perpetrator relations and dynamics in Havana, while partially shaping the content of both the Victims’ Agreement and Final Agreement. As such, the delegations created paths for empowerment at the individual and, in part, collective levels. However, victim inclusion also precipitated experiences of victim depoliticization, revictimization, retraumatization and instrumentalization. Drawing on insights from across academic disciplines, the book proposes an instrumentalization / empowerment spectrum to analyse the complex impact of victim-centred approaches to peacemaking/transitional justice, and is valuable for both researchers and practitioners.

Gender and Citizenship in Transitional Justice

Gender and Citizenship in Transitional Justice PDF Author: Sanne Weber
Publisher: Policy Press
ISBN: 1529234131
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
Through two Colombian case studies, Sanne Weber identifies the ways in which conflict experiences are defined by structures of gender inequality, and how these could be transformed in the post-conflict context. The author reveals that current, apparently gender-sensitive, transitional justice (TJ) and disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) laws and policies ultimately undermine rather than transform gender equality and, consequently, weaken the chances of achieving holistic and durable peace. To overcome this, Weber offers an innovative approach to TJ and DDR that places gendered citizenship as both the starting point and the continued driving force of post-conflict reconstruction.

Feminist Interventions in Critical Peace and Conflict Studies

Feminist Interventions in Critical Peace and Conflict Studies PDF Author: Laura McLeod
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000395227
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
This book provides a feminist intervention in Peace & Conflict Studies. It demonstrates why feminist approaches matter to theories and practices of resolving conflict and building peace. Understanding power inequalities in contexts of armed conflict and peace processes is crucial for identifying the root causes of conflict and opportunities for peaceful transformation. Feminist scholarship offers vital theoretical insights and innovative methods, which can deepen our understanding of power relations in peacebuilding. Yet, all too often feminist research receives token acknowledgement rather than sustained engagement and analysis. This collection highlights the value of feminist analysis to contemporary Peace and Conflict Studies. Drawing on case studies from around the world - including Croatia, Myanmar, Iceland, Nepal, India, Afghanistan, and Timor-Leste – it demonstrates why paying serious attention to feminist scholarship prompts useful insights for peacebuilding policy, practice, and scholarship. Feminist theory, epistemology, and methodology provide a rich resource for critically analysing peacebuilding practices. In particular, the chapters highlight the value of feminist reflexivity, the contributions of a feminist corporeal analysis, and the significance of a feminist reading of core concepts in Peace and Conflict Studies – including hybridity, the local, and the everyday. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Peacebuilding.

Framing the Nation and Collective Identities

Framing the Nation and Collective Identities PDF Author: Vjeran Pavlaković
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351381784
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
This book analyzes top-down and bottom-up strategies of framing the nation and collective identities through commemorative practices relating to events from the Second World War and the 1990s "Homeland War" in Croatia. With attention to media representations of commemorative events and opinion poll data, it draws on interviews and participant observation at commemorative events to focus on the speeches of political elites, together with the speeches of opposition politicians and other social actors (such as the Catholic Church, anti-fascist organizations and war veterans’ and victims’ organizations) who challenge official narratives. Offering innovative approaches to researching and analyzing commemorative practices in post-conflict societies, this examination of a nation’s transition from a Yugoslav republic to an independent state – and now the newest member of the European Union – constitutes a unique case study for scholars of cultural memory and identity politics interested in the production and representation of national identities in official narratives.

The Palgrave Handbook of Social Fieldwork

The Palgrave Handbook of Social Fieldwork PDF Author: Nasir Uddin
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031136152
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 470

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Book Description
This handbook offers epistemologically and ontologically important personal accounts of academic and professional researchers having long-term intensive, comprehensive and ethnographic fieldwork in various social settings and versatile regional contexts across the globe. The accounts are cross-disciplinary including anthropology, sociology, geography, political sciences, gender studies, forestry and environmental studies, economics, and international relations. They are also trans-regional, covering the globe including South Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America and North America. The book offers a comprehensive portrait of multifaceted challenges that social researchers experience while doing fieldwork in various social settings. The accounts provide both challenges of doing fieldwork in the 21st century and the ways how to address/redress them in the field by complying with the codes of ethics, and the politics of fieldwork. Readers will benefit from the handbook by understanding methodological issues from both disciplinary relevance and regional specificity across time and spaces.

Amoral Communities

Amoral Communities PDF Author: Mila Dragojević
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501739840
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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Book Description
In Amoral Communities, Mila Dragojević examines how conditions conducive to atrocities against civilians are created during wartime in some communities. She identifies the exclusion of moderates and the production of borders as the main processes. In these places, political and ethnic identities become linked and targeted violence against civilians becomes both tolerated and justified by the respective authorities as a necessary sacrifice for a greater political goal. Dragojević augments the literature on genocide and civil wars by demonstrating how violence can be used as a political strategy, and how communities, as well as individuals, remember episodes of violence against civilians. The communities on which she focuses are Croatia in the 1990s and Uganda and Guatemala in the 1980s. In each case Dragojević considers how people who have lived peacefully as neighbors for many years are suddenly transformed into enemies, yet intracommunal violence is not ubiquitous throughout the conflict zone; rather, it is specific to particular regions or villages within those zones. Reporting on the varying wartime experiences of individuals, she adds depth, emotion, and objectivity to the historical and socioeconomic conditions that shaped each conflict. Furthermore, as Amoral Communities describes, the exclusion of moderates and the production of borders limit individuals' freedom to express their views, work to prevent the possible defection of members of an in-group, and facilitate identification of individuals who are purportedly a threat. Even before mass killings begin, Dragojević finds, these and similar changes will have transformed particular villages or regions into amoral communities, places where the definition of crime changes and violence is justified as a form of self-defense by perpetrators.