1st Edition
Resilience, Conflict-Related Sexual Violence and Transitional Justice A Social-Ecological Framing
This interdisciplinary book constitutes the first major and comparative study of resilience focused on victims-/survivors of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV). Locating resilience in the relationships and interactions between individuals and their social ecologies (including family, community, non-governmental organisations and the natural environment), the book develops its own conceptual framework based on the idea of connectivity. It applies the framework to its analysis of rich empirical data from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Colombia and Uganda, and it tells a set of stories about resilience through the contextual, dynamic and storied connectivities between individuals and their social ecologies. Ultimately, it utilises the three elements of the framework – namely, broken and ruptured connectivities, supportive and sustaining connectivities and new connectivities – to argue the case for developing the field of transitional justice in new social-ecological directions, and to explore what this might conceptually and practically entail.
The book will particularly appeal to anyone with an interest in, or curiosity about, resilience, and to scholars, researchers and policy makers working on CRSV and/or transitional justice. The fact that resilience has received surprisingly little attention within existing literature on either CRSV or transitional justice accentuates the significance of this research and the originality of its conceptual and empirical contributions.
The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
Introduction: Resilience, Conflict-Related Sexual Violence and Transitional Justice 1. Thinking about Resilience as a Social-Ecological Concept 2. Analysing Resilience Through Connectivity 3. Research Design, Methodology and Ethics 4. The Conflicts and Use of Sexual Violence in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Colombia and Uganda 5. Connectivity Stories of Resilience in Bosnia-Herzegovina 6. Connectivity Stories of Resilience in Colombia 7. Connectivity Stories of Resilience in Uganda 8. Resilience and Why Social Ecologies Matter for Transitional Justice Conclusion: Final Reflections and Connecting the Threads
Biography
Janine Natalya Clark is Professor of Gender, Transitional Justice and International Criminal Law at Birmingham Law School, University of Birmingham, UK.
'This insightful and creative work provides a vivid example of why it is so important that we consider resilience. With great sensitivity to the voices of victims/survivors of conflict-related sexual violence, Clark helps us to understand what resilience theory can offer when unravelling the deep complexity of human experiences.'
Michael Ungar, Professor, Dalhousie University, Canada
'If "resilience" has become a buzzword, people often fail to define the term. In this book, Janine Natalya Clark not only deeply conceptualizes resilience, but offers a novel way of approaching it in terms of social ecology. By doing so, Clark makes an important contribution to transitional justice and many other fields concerned with resilience.'
Alex Hinton, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, Rutgers University, USA
'This ground-breaking book directs scholarly, policy and practitioner attention to people’s capacity for resilience to conflict-related sexual violence. Using a novel social-ecological, comparative approach, Clark builds on the powerful stories of victims-/survivors in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Colombia and Uganda to show that interpersonal and ecological "connectivities" matter for resilience and transitional justice.'
Linda Theron, Full Professor, University of Pretoria, South Africa
