Journal articles by Roxani Krystalli
International Political Sociology, 2023
Complementing discussions of reflexivity as a research practice, this arti- cle turns its attenti... more Complementing discussions of reflexivity as a research practice, this arti- cle turns its attention to the classroom. How does a pedagogy that invites students to practice reflexivity represent possibilities for thinking, writing, and imagining otherwise in scholarly engagements with world politics? In response to this question, I explore the dilemmas, challenges, and possi- bilities students encounter in practicing reflexivity. These include the chal- lenge of meaningfully locating the self in relation to the workings of power, moving beyond a checkbox approach to vectors of identity, and learning to specifically analyze the manifestations of power in daily life. I argue that both the dilemmas and possibilities of practicing reflexivity are related to hierarchies of knowledge creation—and the opportunities to challenge those hierarchies—in the study of world politics. The aim is to illustrate how teachers and students of world politics alike can treat the invitation for reflexivity in the classroom as a potential site of experimentation and freedom that disrupts rigid frameworks of generating knowledge.
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Current Anthropology, 2023
This article focuses on the experiences of a particular group of transitional justice professiona... more This article focuses on the experiences of a particular group of transitional justice professionals in Colombia: bureaucrats within Colombian state agencies who had either experienced harm in the context of the armed conflict that rendered them eligible for official recognition as victims or previously worked for activist groups and social justice nongovernmental organizations advocating on behalf of those recognized as victims. How do these bureaucrats trouble imaginations of victimhood, statehood, and the relationship between the two during transitions from violence? Drawing from ethnographic observation of transitional justice programs in Colombia and from interviews with the professionals who implemented them, I argue that these professionals illuminate contrasting notions of moral and bureaucratic authority in the transitional justice enterprise. This analysis theoretically and empirically contributes to an understanding of not only how bureaucracy shapes victimhood during transitions from violence but also how victimhood shapes bureaucrats. It also informs theoretical conceptualizations of embodying the state, as well as ethical and methodological debates on researching the legacies and effects of transitional justice mechanisms.
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International Studies Review, 2022
While research on armed conflict focuses primarily on violence and suf- fering, this article expl... more While research on armed conflict focuses primarily on violence and suf- fering, this article explores the practices of love and care that sit alongside these experiences of harm. Motivated by our omissions to pay sufficient attention to love and care in our research to date, we ask: How can cen- tering practices of love and care illuminate different pathways for under- standing the remaking of worlds in the wake of violence? Building on in- terdisciplinary literature, we conceptualize love and care as practices and potential sites of politics that shape how people survive and make sense of violence as well as imagine and enact lives in its wake. Drawing from our respective research in Colombia and Uganda, we argue that paying attention to love and care expands scholarly understandings of the sites associated with remaking a world, draws attention to the simultaneity of harms and care, sheds light on the textured meanings of politics and po- litical work, and highlights ethical and narrative dilemmas regarding how to capture these political meanings without reducing their intricacies. For each of the pillars of our argument, we propose a set of questions and av- enues that can shape emergent research agendas on taking love and care seriously in contexts of armed conflict.
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Journal of Narrative Politics, 2021
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Global Studies Quarterly, 2021
Interdisciplinary scholarly literature considers how research processes may adversely affect thei... more Interdisciplinary scholarly literature considers how research processes may adversely affect their participants. Building on this work, this article addresses the processes and practices of applied research in contexts in which imbalances of power exist between researchers and those being researched. We argue that research activities in international development and humanitarian work that are typically operational, such as needs assessments, baseline studies, and monitoring and evaluation, represent interventions in the lives of participants, with the potential to create value or harm, delight or distress. The ethical and methodological dilemmas of this intervention have received less attention than purely academic discussions of human subject research. How can applied researchers meaningfully reckon with the effects of the research process on both those conducting it and those participating in it throughout the research cycle? In response, we introduce an approach co-developed over seven years through engagement with applied researchers across sectors. We discuss four interrelated principles-relevance, respect, right-sizing, and rigor-intended to invite a commitment to ongoing process improvement in the conduct of applied research. We also propose a framework to guide the implementation of these principles and illustrate the tensions that may arise in the process of its application. These contributions extend conversations about research ethics and methods to the operational research realm, as well as provide concrete tools for reflecting on the processes of operational research as sites of power that ought to be considered as seriously as the findings of data collection activities.
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Women's Studies International Forum, 2022
Even during armed conflict and displacement, weddings continue, as people enter into marriage and... more Even during armed conflict and displacement, weddings continue, as people enter into marriage and adapt the processes and rituals associated with this milestone. In this paper, we trace the changes to marriage practices in the Bentiu Protection of Civilians site and adjacent areas of Rubkona and Bentiu towns in South Sudan's Unity State. Specifically, we ask how, in the context of armed conflict and displacement, the shift from a cattle-based economy to one entailing greater use of cash has affected the meanings and processes of marriages. We highlight changes to bridewealth, and corresponding shifts in the engagement of relatives, community members and social networks in the rite and process of marriage. We argue that these changes both challenge social norms around the ties and broader connections that result from marriages and potentially highlight opportunities of agency for those entering a marriage during displacement. This analysis contributes to a growing body of literature that adopts a relational understanding of survival during displacement and underscores the importance of taking social connectedness seriously in the study of armed conflict.
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International Feminist Journal of Politics, 2021
Feminist researchers are increasingly paying attention to the politics of victimhood during trans... more Feminist researchers are increasingly paying attention to the politics of victimhood during transitions from violence. In this article, I address the dilemmas of researching victimhood when the researcher herself is part of the production of its politics and hierarchies. Based on in-depth fieldwork in Colombia, I examine dilemmas related to (1) directing the research gaze during transitions from war; (2) investigating violence without requiring people to re-narrate harms suffered during armed conflict; (3) engaging with both voluntary and imposed silences; and (4) navigating the complicated tug of loyalties among conflict-affected actors. I argue that ethics and methods are inseparable from each other, from the findings of the research, and from the meaningful study of power and violence. Collectively, these insights contribute to an ongoing interdisciplinary conversation about power and politics in the study of violence.
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European Journal of International Relations, 2020
Survivors of systematic violations of human rights abuses carry with them the evidence of their v... more Survivors of systematic violations of human rights abuses carry with them the evidence of their victimization: photographs of the missing, news clippings, copies of police reports. In some contexts, collecting and preserving these documents is part of an effort to claim benefits, such as official victim status or reparations, from the state. In others, it serves as a record of and rebuke to the state’s inaction. In this article, through a comparative case study of victim mobilization in Colombia and Sri Lanka, we explore how these dynamics play out in contexts with high and low (respectively) levels of state action on transitional justice. Drawing on in-depth fieldwork in both contexts, we examine grassroots documentation practices with an eye toward how they reflect the strategic adaptation of international transitional justice norms to specific contexts. We also examine how they organize relationships among individuals, the state, and notions of justice in times of transition from war and dictatorship. We argue that, beyond the strategic engagement with and/or rebuke of the state, these documents are also sites of ritual and memory for those who collect them.
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International Feminist Journal of Politics, 2019
“As we go forward in the twenty-first century,” Cynthia Enloe writes, “feminists inside and outsi... more “As we go forward in the twenty-first century,” Cynthia Enloe writes, “feminists inside and outside academia need to be on our guard against a cynical form of knowing. We need to send the roots of our curiosity down even deeper” (2004, 18). In this conversation, we have endeavored to do just that. In August 2019, we exchanged several emails about the politics of seriousness, the meanings of politics, and the different ways in which we have understood ourselves and our feminist work over time. We wanted to turn the usual curi- osity that we orient toward our questions on international politics toward the topics of identity, writing, academia, failure, and joy. These, too, are feminist questions, not only because they prompt reflections on power but also because they invite us to take seriously the issues of joy, well-being, and the meaning that we each find in how we do our work. A lightly edited version of this conversation can be found below.
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Journal of Refugee Studies, 2021
South Sudanese fled their communities in large numbers following the outbreak of political violen... more South Sudanese fled their communities in large numbers following the outbreak of political violence in 2013, with an estimated 4.5 million forcibly displaced by mid-2018. Of neighbouring countries, Uganda hosts the greatest number of South Sudanese refugees. Based on qualitative data collected in 2018 and 2019 in two refugee settlements in the West Nile sub-region of Uganda, this article examines the social connectedness of refugees during their flight and after their arrival in Uganda. How do refugees rely on the new relationships they form during displacement, and in what ways do these relationships enhance our understanding of the role, forms, and importance of social connectedness during displacement? We analyse how social connections provide material and non-material support, how refugees use scarce resources to negotiate and cultivate social connections, and how gender and status influence inclusion and exclusion within social networks. We find that proximity and shared experience are the two most important factors in social connectedness following displacement and that non-material support plays a critical role in facilitating resilience. Collectively, these findings highlight the significance of a relational, rather than individualistic, approach to survival during displacement. In addition to the theoretical significance of these findings, and the contribution to the growing literature on social connectedness during armed conflict, this article is relevant to humanitarian decision-makers and practitioners who aim to craft programmes that support, rather than undermine, the coping strategies of displaced people.
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Political and Legal Anthropology Review, 2020
The events I observed during my research may have varied in subject matter and tone, but attendan... more The events I observed during my research may have varied in subject matter and tone, but attendance sheets were a constant in every meeting that involved the state (McFee 2019; Lederach 2019). State officials imbued these documents with anxiety. I noticed the urgency with which they tracked attendance sheets, photocopied them, and filed them into folders as soon as the meeting concluded. Attendance sheets are an instrument of audit culture (Strathern 1996), referring to “norms and social practices of assessment, through which accountability and ‘good practice’ are demonstrated and made visible” (Vannier 2010: 283). They tell stories not only about the presence of those recognized as victims in particular spaces, but also about the work of institutions and officials of the state towards transitional justice. They also illustrate the ways in which some labor gets quantified and therefore “counts,” while other labor goes undocumented and unnoticed (Shore et al. 2015). As Sally Merry writes, “one effect of power is what gets measured,” which “depends on which problems seem politically important” (Merry 2016: 2019). In the context of interactions between state officials and those recognized as victims, attendance sheets are both a site of politics and an instrument of power.
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What would a gender analysis of refugee crises reveal if one expanded the focus beyond female ref... more What would a gender analysis of refugee crises reveal if one expanded the focus beyond female refugees, and acts of physical violence? This paper draws on qualitative research conducted in Denmark, Greece, Jordan, and Turkey in July and August 2016 to spotlight the gendered kinship, hierarchies, networks, and transactions that affect refugees. The coping strategies of groups often overlooked in the gender conversation are examined throughout this study, including those of male refugees and those making crossings outside of the context of a family unit. The analysis is theoretically situated at the intersection of critical humanitarianism and the politics of vulnerability, and rooted in debates about the feminisation of refugees and corresponding protection agendas. A key contribution of this work is the ethnographic tracing of how refugees embody these politics along their journeys. In closing, the paper sketches out some implications of the findings for humanitarian practice and identifies avenues for further research.
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International Journal: Canada's Journal of Global Policy Analysis, 2014
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A contribution to the International Feminist Journal of Politics Conversations forum, Responding... more A contribution to the International Feminist Journal of Politics Conversations forum, Responding to #AllMalePanels: A Collage.
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Book chapters by Roxani Krystalli
Uncertainty in Global Politics, 2023
Uncertainty causes epistemological anxiety in the study of world politics. Rather than assuming t... more Uncertainty causes epistemological anxiety in the study of world politics. Rather than assuming that uncertainty is something to manage, measure, minimize, deny, or fear, this chapter proceeds from a different premise: How would the study of world politics be different if scholars embraced uncertainty in their work? In response, we treat uncertainty not as something to overcome, but as a research ethos and epistemological practice that can shape knowledge, knowledge-making practices, and the knowledge creators themselves. We begin by asking: What makes prediction, certainty, and fixity cherished goals for this discipline? To explore this question, we draw on our collective experiences as researchers, students, and teachers of international relations. We treat pedagogy as a site of both analytic interest and power. Next, we highlight how embracing uncertainty has the potential to challenge hierarchies of knowledge creation in world politics. Drawing on feminist and decolonial perspectives, we demonstrate how embracing uncertainty in research challenges hierarchies by moving away from the reification of “that which can be reasonably known” and towards meaningfully reckoning with the role of emotions and fluid identities in shaping theories and experiences of world politics.
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Gender Matters in Global Politics, 2022
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Handbook on Gender and Violence, 2019
In this chapter, I explore how what we know about violence changes when we take narratives seriou... more In this chapter, I explore how what we know about violence changes when we take narratives seriously. To do so, I draw from a growing feminist tradition of narrative research – and I ask what is feminist about these approaches. I argue that engaging with narratives is not only a methodological choice, but also an ethical posture: a curiosity about knowledge and an orientation towards power.
I begin by examining the skepticism towards narrative approaches to research about violence. This can lead to the discrediting of both individual narratives and the reliance on narratives as a way of researching violence. Much of that resistance emerges from two sources: gendered ideas about emotions and knowledge, and concerns about credibility or unverifiable, unstable, unreliable truths. I then examine a key question that narrative scholars confront through their work: Which stories do we tell and who is allowed to tell them? Next, I turn to how feminist scholars engaging with narratives challenge binaries of knowledge production and express curiosity about categories, indicators, and hierarchies. In the section that follows, I explore how we engage with silences, omissions, and non-linear accounts of time. Finally, I look at the stories we tell about violence as narratives themselves: How do we locate – or obscure – ourselves in our writing? How does the language in which we write about our research raise questions about accessibility and the politics and hierarchies of knowledge production? It would be ironic to write about narratives without narrating. Throughout this chapter, I draw from my own research on the politics of victimhood in Colombia to illustrate the above dilemmas.
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Feminist Solutions for Ending War, 2021
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The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork, 2020
In this chapter, I examine what and whom we imagine to be protecting when we use the language of ... more In this chapter, I examine what and whom we imagine to be protecting when we use the language of ethics and transparency to describe research. How does the imagination of humans as data inform different approaches to transparency and ethics in research? I draw from my experiences in negotiating about data transparency with a funding agency to reflect on how different temporalities and spaces of research and violence alike inform interpretations of our responsibilities toward research interlocutors. The goal of the chapter is to synthesize recent research to advance an alternate orientation of transparency, away from a conceptualization informed by liability or “checkbox” compliance and toward a practice of reflexive openness.
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Oxford Handbook on Gender and Conflict, 2017
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Journal articles by Roxani Krystalli
Book chapters by Roxani Krystalli
I begin by examining the skepticism towards narrative approaches to research about violence. This can lead to the discrediting of both individual narratives and the reliance on narratives as a way of researching violence. Much of that resistance emerges from two sources: gendered ideas about emotions and knowledge, and concerns about credibility or unverifiable, unstable, unreliable truths. I then examine a key question that narrative scholars confront through their work: Which stories do we tell and who is allowed to tell them? Next, I turn to how feminist scholars engaging with narratives challenge binaries of knowledge production and express curiosity about categories, indicators, and hierarchies. In the section that follows, I explore how we engage with silences, omissions, and non-linear accounts of time. Finally, I look at the stories we tell about violence as narratives themselves: How do we locate – or obscure – ourselves in our writing? How does the language in which we write about our research raise questions about accessibility and the politics and hierarchies of knowledge production? It would be ironic to write about narratives without narrating. Throughout this chapter, I draw from my own research on the politics of victimhood in Colombia to illustrate the above dilemmas.
I begin by examining the skepticism towards narrative approaches to research about violence. This can lead to the discrediting of both individual narratives and the reliance on narratives as a way of researching violence. Much of that resistance emerges from two sources: gendered ideas about emotions and knowledge, and concerns about credibility or unverifiable, unstable, unreliable truths. I then examine a key question that narrative scholars confront through their work: Which stories do we tell and who is allowed to tell them? Next, I turn to how feminist scholars engaging with narratives challenge binaries of knowledge production and express curiosity about categories, indicators, and hierarchies. In the section that follows, I explore how we engage with silences, omissions, and non-linear accounts of time. Finally, I look at the stories we tell about violence as narratives themselves: How do we locate – or obscure – ourselves in our writing? How does the language in which we write about our research raise questions about accessibility and the politics and hierarchies of knowledge production? It would be ironic to write about narratives without narrating. Throughout this chapter, I draw from my own research on the politics of victimhood in Colombia to illustrate the above dilemmas.
In this research project on the politics of victimhood in Colombia, I draw from fifteen months of ethnographic fieldwork to ask: What does it mean to be a “good victim”? How is victimhood produced and performed—by representatives of the state and those who identify as victims alike —in order to be legible in the context of transitional justice processes? And what are the implications of these constructed hierarchies for theories and experiences of justice during transitions from violence?
This project is grounded in anthropological literature on violence, complemented by insights from the fields of transitional justice, feminist theory, and critical humanitarianism. The goal of this inquiry is to trouble, rather than reify, the category of ‘victim’ and to examine its use and effects on experiences of justice during transitions from violence.
NOTE THAT THIS IS THE INTRODUCTION TO MY PHD THESIS. IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN READING THE FULL MANUSCRIPT, PLEASE CONTACT ME. THANK YOU.
As Laura Shepherd writes, alternate ways of understanding women’s experiences in war and peace in the WPS agenda include the framing of women as agents of change, as subjects of (predominantly economic) empowerment, as decision-makers, and as local peacebuilders. Each of those frames relies on gendered, racialized, and colonially-informed ideas about agency, power, authority, and subjectivity during transitions from violence. These ideas shape the content of trainings and workshops about peace, security, and rights, the designation of certain people as trainers and others as subjects of training, and the definitions of peace and security that inform these interventions.
I analyze here how a feminist approach to victimhood can inform our understanding of the WPS agenda—and of the lowercase meanings of peace, security, and women’s roles in them. Drawing from fifteen months of in-depth ethnographic fieldwork in Colombia between 2016 and 2018, I analyze the meanings of victimhood as a political status and a potential site of power and agency during transitions from violence.
This paper is part of an OFDA-funded partnership between Mercy Corps and the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University to examine changes to social connectedness for conflict-affected South Sudanese in South Sudan and Uganda.
The question of changes to marriages is relevant for humanitarian practitioners, decision-makers, and researchers. First, consistent with research in South Sudan and other contexts, we show that weddings and marriages are not only privately important for those who directly participate in them, but also carry broader social and symbolic significance for the community. Second, weddings and marriages provide a useful lens for examining the effects of cash on social connectedness, as well as the effects of livelihood loss—in the form of cattle, in particular—on new and existing relationships. Finally, an examination of weddings and marriages allows for a gender- and age-informed analysis of how social relationships are reconfigured during conflict and displacement. We pay particular attention to how norms around the regulation of gendered relationships have evolved during the course of conflict and displacement, and the ways in which livelihood changes affect those norms.
This paper is part of an OFDA-funded partnership between Mercy Corps and the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University to examine changes to social connectedness for conflict-affected South Sudanese in South Sudan and Uganda.
Ultimately, this paper strays from formal financial inclusion frameworks which tend to delimit financial inclusion in terms of integrating customers into an existing digital or formal (hereon “digital/formal”) financial infrastructure. Instead, we examine the financial tasks that refugees and displaced populations must perform in order to survive and their strategies for navigating these processes while on the move.
Observers have been commenting on the shock of the defeat and on the added twist of the Nobel. But few in the English-language media have discussed how the attention of the peace accords to sexuality and women’s experiences of the conflict may have affected views during the plebiscite. Here’s what we know.
In July, the sub-commission presented the results of its work to the assembled peace delegations in Havana, as well as to U.N. officials and representatives of Colombian civil society groups. While not all of the agreement’s documents are final or publicly available, here is what we know from the available summaries and public statements.
In Good Victims, Roxani Krystalli investigates the politics of victimhood as a feminist question. Based on in-depth engagement in Colombia over the course of a decade, Krystalli argues for the possibilities of politics through, rather than in opposition to, the status of "victim." Encompassing acts of care, agency, and haunting, the politics of victimhood entangle people who identify as victims, researchers, and transitional justice professionals. Krystalli shows how victimhood becomes a pillar of reimagining the state in the wake of war, and of bringing a vision of that state into being through bureaucratic encounters. Good Victims also sheds light on the ethical and methodological dilemmas that arise when contemplating the legacies of transitional justice mechanisms.