6 | Moral Economies of Victimhood

February 11, Moral Economies and the Politics of Victimhood

In the design of transitional justice mechanisms and reparations, collection of testimony, and correction of the historical record, policymakers, academics, and journalists centre victims. But who are the victims? Who decides? In this class, we will investigate the ‘dilemmas and indignities (Krystalli 2021)’ of narrating victimhood and the moral and political economies of such narrations. How does the project of creating categories of victims and perpetrators shape historical truths, questions of responsibility, and the reconciliation of divided publics? In whose name and memory?

Readings (confirmed)

  1. Golubović, Jelena. ‘One Day I Will Tell This to My Daughter’: Serb Women, Silence, and the Politics of Victimhood in Sarajevo. Anthropological Quarterly 92.4 (2019): 1173-1199.
  2. Krystalli, Roxani, ‘The Political as a (Feminist) Question’, Good Victims: The Political as a Feminist Question (New York, 2024): 2-30.
  3. Krystalli, Roxani, ‘Living Ethics and Methods as Questions: Dilemmas of Narrating Victimhood‘, Good Victims: The Political as a Feminist Question (New York, 2024)
BONUS:  Krystalli, Roxani, ‘The Future of Victimhood‘, Good Victims: The Political as a Feminist Question (New York, 2024)
BONUS:  Tuck, Eve. “Suspending damage: A letter to communities.” Harvard educational review 79.3 (2009): 409-428. (read first half)

Further Reading

  1. Nneoma V. Nwogu, When and Why It Started: Deconstructing Victim-Centered Truth Commissions in the Context of Ethnicity-Based Conflict, International Journal of Transitional Justice, Volume 4, Issue 2, July 2010, Pages 275–289
  2. Theidon, K. (2006). Justice in Transition: The Micropolitics of Reconciliation in Postwar Peru. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 50(3), 433-457. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022002706286954
  3. Fassin, Didier, and Richard Rechtman. The empire of trauma: An inquiry into the condition of victimhood. Princeton University Press, 2009.
  4. Wexler, Anthony C. “Pedagogy in Gray: Primo Levi as Teacher.” differences 34.3 (2023): 106-128.
  5. Brigitte Herremans, Tine Destrooper, Stirring the Justice Imagination: Countering the Invisibilization and Erasure of Syrian Victims’ Justice Narratives, International Journal of Transitional Justice, Volume 15, Issue 3, November 2021, Pages 576–595, https://doi.org/10.1093/ijtj/ijab025
  6. McEvoy, Kieran, and Kirsten McConnachie. Victimology in transitional justice: Victimhood, innocence and hierarchy. European Journal of Criminology 9.5 (2012): 527-538.
  7. Erin K. Baines, “Today, I Want to Speak Out the Truth”: Victim Agency, Responsibility, and Transitional Justice, International Political Sociology, Volume 9, Issue 4, December 2015, Pages 316–332, https://doi.org/10.1111/ips.12100      and/or 

Presentation

Documentary:  The Look of Silence, Joshua Oppenheimer (CN:  Everything)