Special issue on recognition of victims of serious human rights violations

Abstract

This special issue examines victim recognition in the case of serious human rights violations. Starting from how victimology has addressed the issue of victim recognition, it analyses the importance for victims of recognition and recognitive attitudes in contexts of political crimes and transitional justice. The papers presented in this special issue take on a multidisciplinary approach to highlight the importance of different types of recognition for healing victims and their relationships with others. They illustrate how recognition can be felt cumulatively and obtained by victims through the responses of different actors across various social spaces. They also indicate that victim recognition in the legal sphere is fraught with obstacles and that victims facing the absence of legal recognition may find some satisfaction through non-judicial and informal measures of justice, interpersonal and community interactions and psychosocial support. Two papers address the issue of victim recognition as a central part of a deep societal transformation towards healing intergroup relationships and reconciliation in the case of historical injustices and structural victimisation in Canada. Two other papers address particularly State recognition: one focuses on individual and collective reparations for victims of forced displacement in the contexts of Argentina and Iraq; the other discusses the struggles faced by victims of sexual and gender-based violence seeking for legal recognition in Guatemala and Belgium. Recognition of victims in Colombia through people’s engagement with art as symbolic reparations is the focus of another paper. Finally, two other papers concern victims’ struggles in claiming for recognition in the contexts of Perú and Ecuador, analysing respectively how recognition can be experienced and furthered through group mobilisation and group support. Taken together, these different papers constitute an innovative attempt to apply the concept and the intricacies of victim recognition to the context of political crimes and transitional justice.

Keywords

Recognition victims transitional justice political violence

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