Periodic Reporting for period 3 - VictPart (Righting Victim Participation in Transitional Justice)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2022-07-01 do 2023-12-31
The question of how to serve justice, facilitate peaceful transitions and empower victims of past large-scale abuses is about as old as the field of transitional justice itself. Increasingly, academics and practitioners are turning to participatory approaches as a promising way to make advances regarding each of these issues. An oft-cited benefit of victim participation in transitional justice processes is that it allegedly increases the legitimacy of these processes by rendering them more locally relevant, and that it empowers participants and turns them into ambassadors of the justice process.
Because formal and informal transitional justice processes often face significant practical, financial and political constraints, it is crucial to better understand how participatory approaches can be developed in ways that contribute to a positive and lasting legacy, especially in a world where a vast number of societies is emerging from violent conflict, and where failure to engender durable justice and peace may lead to more instability and ultimately violence.
The main objective of this project is threefold, (1) to conduct a systematic analysis of the scope, nature, modalities and role of victim participation in transitional justice processes, (2) to study empirically and comparatively how participation shapes victims' experience and understandings of justice and their rights, and (3) to develop the critical victimology framework that is currently missing and to establish how this framework can be used to conceptualize victim participation in ways that contribute to transitional justice's goal of engendering just, stable and secure societies.
A multi-disciplinary approach, rooted in legal studies, social psychology, political science, public administration and anthropology is proposed, which allows for a multi-dimensional understanding of these issues, both in academic and in practical terms. The research findings from this project will have the potential to enhance the stability of the global society by creating scientific results and turning them into measurable impact. They will provide policy-makers with empirically supported expertise on pressing policy issues, and, because of the project's attention to international institutions as well as local contexts, findings will enrich our scholarly understanding of the interaction between these policy levels and apply to many post-conflict settings worldwide.
In practice, the first project cycle has been decisively shaped by COVID-19. Fieldwork plans had to be postponed, research components requiring only desk-study had to be frontloaded, and with the perspective of fieldwork maybe not being possible at any point, some research questions had to be altered, research methods had to be tailored and the role of local research assistants has been revisited.
Eventually a more limited version of the intended fieldwork has been possible. These will allow us to engage with the project's initial research questions, but some modifications will have to be made in the margins.
Because formal and informal transitional justice processes often face significant practical, financial and political constraints, it is crucial to better understand how participatory approaches can be developed in ways that contribute to a positive and lasting legacy, especially in a world where a vast number of societies is emerging from violent conflict, and where failure to engender durable justice and peace may lead to more instability and ultimately violence.
The main objective of this project is threefold, (1) to conduct a systematic analysis of the scope, nature, modalities and role of victim participation in transitional justice processes, (2) to study empirically and comparatively how participation shapes victims' experience and understandings of justice and their rights, and (3) to develop the critical victimology framework that is currently missing and to establish how this framework can be used to conceptualize victim participation in ways that contribute to transitional justice's goal of engendering just, stable and secure societies.
A multi-disciplinary approach, rooted in legal studies, social psychology, political science, public administration and anthropology is proposed, which allows for a multi-dimensional understanding of these issues, both in academic and in practical terms. The research findings from this project will have the potential to enhance the stability of the global society by creating scientific results and turning them into measurable impact. They will provide policy-makers with empirically supported expertise on pressing policy issues, and, because of the project's attention to international institutions as well as local contexts, findings will enrich our scholarly understanding of the interaction between these policy levels and apply to many post-conflict settings worldwide.
In practice, the first project cycle has been decisively shaped by COVID-19. Fieldwork plans had to be postponed, research components requiring only desk-study had to be frontloaded, and with the perspective of fieldwork maybe not being possible at any point, some research questions had to be altered, research methods had to be tailored and the role of local research assistants has been revisited.
Eventually a more limited version of the intended fieldwork has been possible. These will allow us to engage with the project's initial research questions, but some modifications will have to be made in the margins.
At the level of the project one of the major advances has been (a) the finetuning of the individual projects and ensuring their embeddedness in the overall research project and (b) the conceptualization, development and implementation of a data management plan and architecture and of an ethics protocol, (c) the development of the individual theoretical and methodological frameworks and the conduct of fieldwork.
Regarding the former, we organized
- weekly seminars in the Spring to discuss the key components and concepts (transition, justice, victim, participation, etc) underlying our work. Several of these discussions resulted in papers and articles which have since then been presented at conferences and/or submitted for review (e.g. on the notion of participation, erasure, methodology, truth, temporality);
- Weekly workshops in Fall 2020 to review each other’s interview questions, coding schemes in NVIVO and other data collection tools;
- A four-part training on quantitative methods;
The latter endeavour was entirely coordinated and carried out by one researcher, with input from the team and the PI. This resulted in:
- A safety and harm-reduction policy
- A data protection impact assessment
- GDPR conformity of the project
- A protocol for study-level data collection and processing
- A futureproof data architecture for data collection and processing
- A data storage checklist for the researchers
- Template information sheets about the project for all possible fieldwork scenarios
- Template informed consent sheets (or protocols for seeking verbal informed consent) for all possible fieldwork interventions
On an individual level, the researchers made the following progress:
● Wrote the theoretical and methodological chapters of the dissertation. Developed general topic guides for semi-structured interviews with victims and other stakeholders.
● Developed a general outline detailing the structure and content of the PhD + Fieldwork has almost been finalised in all various case studies (one last case study currently underway)
● Different Trainings :
° Qualitative Data Analysis with NVivo (April 2020).
° Narrative research (September 2020)
° Focus groups (September 2020)
° Interpretative phenomenological analysis (September 2020)
° Introduction to R (October 2019)
° Text mining with R (November 2019)
° Introduction to graphics using R (June 2020)
° Structural Equation Modelling (January & September 2020)
° Narrative analysis (September 2020)
° Impact & research communication skills (19 October 2020)
° Critical Discourse Analysis (November 2020)
Regarding the former, we organized
- weekly seminars in the Spring to discuss the key components and concepts (transition, justice, victim, participation, etc) underlying our work. Several of these discussions resulted in papers and articles which have since then been presented at conferences and/or submitted for review (e.g. on the notion of participation, erasure, methodology, truth, temporality);
- Weekly workshops in Fall 2020 to review each other’s interview questions, coding schemes in NVIVO and other data collection tools;
- A four-part training on quantitative methods;
The latter endeavour was entirely coordinated and carried out by one researcher, with input from the team and the PI. This resulted in:
- A safety and harm-reduction policy
- A data protection impact assessment
- GDPR conformity of the project
- A protocol for study-level data collection and processing
- A futureproof data architecture for data collection and processing
- A data storage checklist for the researchers
- Template information sheets about the project for all possible fieldwork scenarios
- Template informed consent sheets (or protocols for seeking verbal informed consent) for all possible fieldwork interventions
On an individual level, the researchers made the following progress:
● Wrote the theoretical and methodological chapters of the dissertation. Developed general topic guides for semi-structured interviews with victims and other stakeholders.
● Developed a general outline detailing the structure and content of the PhD + Fieldwork has almost been finalised in all various case studies (one last case study currently underway)
● Different Trainings :
° Qualitative Data Analysis with NVivo (April 2020).
° Narrative research (September 2020)
° Focus groups (September 2020)
° Interpretative phenomenological analysis (September 2020)
° Introduction to R (October 2019)
° Text mining with R (November 2019)
° Introduction to graphics using R (June 2020)
° Structural Equation Modelling (January & September 2020)
° Narrative analysis (September 2020)
° Impact & research communication skills (19 October 2020)
° Critical Discourse Analysis (November 2020)
Goals for 2022 and beyond
PhD research
By the end of 2021, the ERC PhD researchers were 28 months into their 40 month PhD program.
This means that the bulk of the fieldwork has taken place in 2021, and that outstanding issues related to the contextual, conceptual, theoretical and methodological chapters of the PhD have been dealt with.
This will allow the researcher to fully immerse themselves in data analysis, compiling final bits of missing information, and writing in 2022, the final year of their PhD programme.
Project
The most challenging task lies in the integration of findings. The lionshare of this work will take place once empirical data are gathered and once the PhD researchers start to write, i.e. from 2022 onwards. To this end a two-day workshop is foreseen in Spring. In addition, the PI will oversee the individual research processes substantively and procedurally, facilitate cross-case collaborations, and supervise timelines. Jointly the PhDs will use a system of peer review to ensure that the data-management system is adequately implemented, and to control the quality of each other’s data and coding schemes.
Output and deliverables
We had an output of academic (10) and non-academic (10) publications, academic (20) and non-academic (20) talks and teaching engagements (10), and will continue our efforts at broad outreach through a fourth season of the Justice Visions Podcast, our social media strategy, our events for broad audiences, and our contacts with mainstream media. We also foresee the organization of a travelling exhibition, and other non-academic formats to valorize the research. We will also continue to engage in extra-curricular activities (e.g. amicus briefs) albeit in a modest sense, given the reality of the fieldwork taking up significant amounts of time.
PhD research
By the end of 2021, the ERC PhD researchers were 28 months into their 40 month PhD program.
This means that the bulk of the fieldwork has taken place in 2021, and that outstanding issues related to the contextual, conceptual, theoretical and methodological chapters of the PhD have been dealt with.
This will allow the researcher to fully immerse themselves in data analysis, compiling final bits of missing information, and writing in 2022, the final year of their PhD programme.
Project
The most challenging task lies in the integration of findings. The lionshare of this work will take place once empirical data are gathered and once the PhD researchers start to write, i.e. from 2022 onwards. To this end a two-day workshop is foreseen in Spring. In addition, the PI will oversee the individual research processes substantively and procedurally, facilitate cross-case collaborations, and supervise timelines. Jointly the PhDs will use a system of peer review to ensure that the data-management system is adequately implemented, and to control the quality of each other’s data and coding schemes.
Output and deliverables
We had an output of academic (10) and non-academic (10) publications, academic (20) and non-academic (20) talks and teaching engagements (10), and will continue our efforts at broad outreach through a fourth season of the Justice Visions Podcast, our social media strategy, our events for broad audiences, and our contacts with mainstream media. We also foresee the organization of a travelling exhibition, and other non-academic formats to valorize the research. We will also continue to engage in extra-curricular activities (e.g. amicus briefs) albeit in a modest sense, given the reality of the fieldwork taking up significant amounts of time.