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Constructing Victimhood: Beyond Innocence and Guilt in Transitional Justice

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Location: C103, Hesburgh Center for International Studies

The book cover of "Constructing Victimhood: Beyond Innocence and Guilt in Transitional Justice" by Cheryl Lawther. The top portion features a repeating pattern of raised numbers on small blocks, evoking a sense of data or quantification. The title and author are prominently displayed against a muted gold background, with a black band separating it from the "Clarendon Studies in Criminology" line at the bottom.

In this talk, Cheryl Lawther, professor of law and a fellow of the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice at Queen’s University Belfast, will draw on her recently published book, Constructing Victimhood: Beyond Innocence and Guilt in Transitional Justice (Oxford University Press, 2024), to expand the criminological, victimological, and transitional justice image of who we “see” as victims, what we “hear” as experiences of victimization, and who makes these determinations.

In her talk, Lawther will argue that if transitional justice is to live up to its claims of being “victim-centered,” it is essential to widen its conceptual and practical boundaries to recognize the multiple and overlapping variables that construct and reproduce victimhood. Lawther will be joined by Josefina Echavarría Álvarez, professor of the practice and director of the Peace Accords Matrix, Joachim Ozonze (Ph.D. candidate in peace studies and theology) and Emma Murphy (postdoctoral researcher, Kroc Institute & Keough-Naughton Institute).

This event is co-sponsored by the Kellogg Institute for International Studies.