The Narrative Construction of Victimhood in Societies Transitioning from War

• In Event: Building Peace and Reducing Violence

Abstract

Narratives of victimhood are sites of intense political contestation between actors seeking to advance their account of the past in societies transitioning from conflict. Although the study of victims of wartime violence has become increasingly important across the social sciences over the last two decades, past research has overlooked the implications of institutionalising particular victim narratives into the processes and mechanisms of transitional justice. The scholarship has consequently failed to gauge how officially sanctioned victimhood narratives may influence post-settlement orders and the kind of peace being built in transitional societies. In light of these disciplinary shortcomings, I ask: How are narratives of victimhood institutionalised in societies transitioning from armed conflict and what are the possible implications of these narratives for post-settlement power distributions and peacebuilding? To explore this question, I devise a framework of understanding grounded in critical theory. The framework surveys how the (re)production of victimhood narratives can shape modalities of truth and knowledge production, configure power relations, and structure peacebuilding processes in societies transitioning from conflict. I apply my framework to study practices of victim representation in the transitional justice systems and mechanisms established in Colombia after 2016 and in Sri Lanka after 2009, revealing the ways in which state power operates in and through these practices to produce ‘legitimate’ victims. My conclusions point to the importance of official victimhood narratives in understanding the socio-political organisation of post-settlement orders and the peace being built in the aftermath of civil wars.

Author

• Alejandro Posada-Téllez, University of Oxford