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Annika Björkdahl

Annika Björkdahl

Professor

Annika Björkdahl

Gendering agency in transitional justice

Author

  • Annika Björkdahl
  • Johanna Mannergren Selimovic

Summary, in English

Mainstream transitional justice and peacebuilding practices tend to re-entrench gendered hierarchies by ignoring women or circumscribing their presence to passive victims in need of protection. As a consequence we have limited knowledge about the multifaceted ways women do justice and build peace. To address this lacuna we conceptualize and unpack the meaning of gendered agency, by identifying its critical elements and by locating it in space and in time. The conceptual work that we undertake is underpinned by empirical mapping of the transitional justice spaces in post-conflict Bosnia-Herzegovina, where we point out instances of critical, creative, and transformative agency performed by women that challenge or negotiate patterns of gendered relations of domination. We collect women's oral narratives and explore new sets of questions to capture women's unique experiences in doing justice. Such research enables us to engage with the subjects of post-conflict peacebuilding and transitional justice processes directly and in their own spaces. This article thus renders women's agency visible and attempts to grasp its contributions and consequences for transformations from war to peace.

Department/s

  • Department of Political Science

Publishing year

2015

Language

English

Pages

165-182

Publication/Series

Security Dialogue

Volume

46

Issue

2

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Topic

  • Political Science

Keywords

  • agency
  • Bosnia-Herzegovina
  • gender
  • peacebuilding
  • transitional justice

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0967-0106