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- Convenors:
-
Charlotte Al-Khalili
(University of Sussex)
Anna Balazs (Södertörn University)
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- Discussant:
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Munzoul Assal
(CHR MICHELSENS INSTITUTT FOR VIDENSKAP OG ÅNDSFRIHET)
- Formats:
- Panel
Short Abstract
This panel examines legal claims and processes that take place while wars are still ongoing and in their direct aftermaths, asking: what ideas and practices of justice appear in such contexts? What jurisdictions can prosecute these crimes? How is justice redefined through these claims?
Long Abstract
As armed conflict and genocide are devastating multiple parts of the world, seeking justice for war crimes has come to the forefront of academic debates (Geneuss and Jeßberger 2022; Billaud and De Lauri 2024). However, anthropological research on the subject has remained circumscribed to the study of transitional justice (Castillejo-Cuellar 2013; Hinton 2010). To address this gap, our panel examines legal claims in the making that address and redefine from a local perspective what can be broadly describe through the four core international crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crime of aggression.
Through its ethnographic and comparative approach, the panel asks how justice is understood by the victims of war crimes and the stakeholders involved in seeking and serving justice. What ideas and practices of justice appear in these contexts? What do justice proceedings mean for the citizens who lived through traumatic experiences of war and political violence? How do they work together with the state, international organizations and local advocacy groups to achieve their goals, and what type of obstacles they face? What are the new technologies and forms of expertise deployed to facilitate the collection of evidence when the sites of atrocities are destroyed or not physically available?
These questions push the ethnographer to rethink the concept of justice from a variety of legal, social and religious perspectives, and to reflect on their different scopes and temporalities. Using ethnographic tools in areas where political violence are still unfolding also questions anthropology’s very methodology and invites the papers to explore the role of archives, witnesses and of their absence.
Accepted papers
Session 1Paper short abstract
Focusing on Afghan refugees turned war-injured veterans, this paper shows how caregiving families seek justice after the Syrian war through tazallom bordan, a form of moral claim-making at the limits of law in their host country, Iran.
Paper long abstract
This paper reframes victim-centred renditions of postwar justice by following Hazara Afghan refugees in Iran. It examines the 'homecoming' of Afghan refugee veterans who, after fighting in Syria under Iran’s command, returned injured to neighbourhoods in Iran. It focuses on their ambiguous status as refugees who fought for their host country, and their efforts to seek justice amid dynamics of post-war non-recognition and misrecognition.
Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in one low-income district since 2015, I ask how wounded veterans and their caregiving families pursue justice when legal pathways are unstable or foreclosed. I show that caregivers seek redress through what they call 'tazallom bordan' in effort to present one’s grievance to a superior authority. More than a juridical petition, tazallom is an existential appeal born of deprivation. Where law tallies rights, tazallom seeks recognition of moral responsibility and insists on being seen and heard. It resembles what Kristin Doughty (2016:21) calls a 'legal architecture of social repair' through grassroots forums, yet it stands outside legal debate and emphasises moral claim-making. In practice, tazallom is not litigiousness, but an effort to render domestic hardship in the state’s grammar of recognition.
Situating tazallom bordan as a politics of postwar recovery and a struggle for non-humanitarian care at the limits of law, the paper argues that war wounds serve not simply as evidence of victimhood, but as a contested resource through which refugee families seek recognition and an owed place in the moral economy of the host state.
Paper short abstract
The conflict resolution techniques applied to the Mozambican civil war (1976-1992) employed DDR programs and transitional justice mechanisms (general amnesty). Traditional rituals sought to resolve this problem at the community level as well as to address the shortcomings of these programs.
Paper long abstract
Restoring law and public order is a traditional activity in post-conflict reconstruction. However, this task is extremely complex, given the lack of an interim code that can be applied in the period following the cessation of hostilities. It is necessary to understand to what extent the existing traditional justice systems in these societies were respected, which employed informal techniques to reintegrate ex-combatants into their communities of origin with a view to national reconciliation. Is it advisable to combine methods of formal justice with methods of traditional justice, or should we consider these two realities incompatible? A possible answer to this question necessarily involves assessing the effectiveness of both procedures and problematizing their limitations and advantages. Local justice may have advantages due to its greater flexibility and informality compared to formal approaches, such as traditional ceremonies. In Mozambique, there seems to have been some success because international actors took local tradition into account. There was a general amnesty – which, for many, meant that the most heinous acts were whitewashed with impunity, falling into oblivion – along with cleansing and purification rituals for ex-combatants, allowing this issue to be addressed, albeit in an atmosphere of secrecy and informality. Discussing the Mozambican case can therefore contribute to a deeper understanding of these dynamics and provide clues for a more holistic approach to the problem.
Paper short abstract
Based on UN refugee status determination work and ethnography with Rohingya Muslims in India, this paper examines how justice remains deferred after ethnic cleansing, showing how legal recognition coexists with statelessness and moral practices that reimagine justice outside formal legal frameworks.
Paper long abstract
This paper examines how ideas and practices of justice are articulated, deferred, and reworked in the aftermath of mass political violence through the case of the Rohingya, a Muslim minority subjected to what the United Nations has described as a “textbook case of ethnic cleansing” in Myanmar. Since the military-led violence of 2017, nearly one million Rohingya have been forcibly displaced, producing the largest stateless refugee population in the world. Drawing on my former role in UN refugee status determination (RSD) procedures and subsequent ethnographic fieldwork with Rohingya Muslims living in Delhi, India, I trace how recognition of persecution as genocide or crimes against humanity does not necessarily bring affected populations closer to justice.
While RSD processes classify Rohingya as refugees fleeing mass violence, these determinations do not translate into meaningful recognition, protection, or redress in host states such as India, a democracy that has neither signed the Refugee Convention nor offers domestic asylum law. Justice, in this context, remains structurally suspended. I show how Rohingya interlocutors nonetheless articulate justice beyond courts and humanitarian regimes—through moral reasoning, collective memory, and Islamic revivalist practices shaped by the Tablighi Jamaat—reframing persecution as racialized, religious, and civilizational rather than confined to Myanmar’s military rule alone.
By following justice as an unfinished and uneven process rather than a post-conflict outcome, this paper contributes an ethnographic account of justice-in-the-making under ongoing political violence, expanding anthropological approaches beyond transitional justice frameworks to include religious, moral, and everyday practices of endurance amid legal abandonment.
Paper short abstract
This paper analyses the experiences of survivor families of political violence and traces the emergent methods undertaken by Muslim-led civil society groups. It analyzes how these actors reconfigure justice beyond legal frameworks through everyday practices and community-based interventions.
Paper long abstract
In this paper, I situate narratives from survivor families of political violence in India, who have varied experiences and articulations of justice, which are not strictly conceptions of ‘legal justice.’ In the last decade, violence against Muslims in India has taken different forms - lynchings, demolitions, physical assaults, and pogroms. Some have been carried out by state actors, and others by vigilante groups (non-state actors). Through the gradual Hindu right-wing consolidation within institutions of the country, pursuing a legal battle against perpetrators of violence has not just turned difficult, but also an act that brings repercussions and retaliatory measures on a day-to-day basis for the families. It is within this context that the paper draws from my ethnographic work, done over a period of six months in Uttar Pradesh (the state with the largest number of hate crimes against Muslims) and New Delhi, India. The analysis traces emergent, Muslim-led civil society initiatives and kin-based practices of care, documentation, archival methods, counter-strategies, articulations of religiosity, and advocacy as crucial arenas in which alternative, community-situated projects of justice are articulated and enacted.
Paper short abstract
What happens when truth-telling must be addressed at once to victims and former commanders? This paper examines “double recognition” in Colombia’s transitional justice process, drawing on ethnography from within the JEP to analyse justice as a relational practice during and after violence.
Paper long abstract
What if what ultimately became a war crime originated as an internal infraction within the guerrilla organisation? This paper explores the everyday making of justice within Colombia’s Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) through the lens of what I call double recognition: a structural difficulty faced by accused former combatants who are expected to acknowledge responsibility simultaneously before victims and before audiences shaped by wartime hierarchies, including former commanders and legal defence structures. This duality complicates truth-telling, confession and accountability in ways that are often obscured by normative models of transitional justice.
Based on ethnographic research conducted from within the institution, the paper examines how judicial proceedings unfold while the social and organisational legacies of war remain present. It shows how acts of recognition are shaped not only by legal expectations, but also by enduring relations of authority, loyalty and fear that continue to structure interaction. Justice emerges here as a negotiated and contingent practice, produced through everyday judicial work rather than as a linear transition from violence to peace.
Methodologically, the paper reflects on the possibilities and challenges of ethnography conducted from inside justice institutions addressing mass political violence, including questions of positionality, access and the instability of archives and testimony. Substantively, it contributes to anthropological debates on justice during and after violence by foregrounding justice-in-the-making, and by questioning the assumption that accountability processes operate in a social vacuum once war is declared over.
Paper short abstract
This paper examines how U.S. interventions are justified to protect Christians during episodes of mass violence in Nigeria, analyzing legal, political, and ethical claims. It asks how ideas of justice are constructed amid ongoing violence and how they shape intervention strategies.
Paper long abstract
This study examines the justifications for U.S. interventions aimed at protecting Christians in Nigeria during episodes of mass political violence and targeted attacks. As conflicts unfold, legal, moral, and political claims emerge to frame these actions as necessary measures to shield civilians and prevent genocide. Drawing on ethnographic and comparative approaches, the paper investigates how justice and protection are understood by local communities, international actors, and policymakers, and how these groups negotiate the legitimacy of intervention within complex and rapidly evolving conflict contexts. Central questions include: How do local populations, states, and international institutions define justice and protection amidst ongoing violence? What legal, moral, and strategic frameworks are invoked to justify intervention? How are emerging technologies, documentation methods, and advocacy networks mobilized when evidence of atrocities is fragmented or sites of violence are inaccessible? The paper also explores how narratives of threat, vulnerability, and humanitarian obligation shape both domestic and international support for intervention. By situating U.S. actions within broader debates on humanitarian law, sovereignty, and the ethics of protection, this study highlights the tensions between global legal norms and local understandings of justice. It demonstrates how interventions are framed simultaneously as protective and politically strategic, reflecting both the ethical imperatives and constraints that govern international responses to mass violence. Ultimately, the paper contributes to discussions on the dynamics of intervention, showing how legal, ethical, and practical considerations intersect in real time to shape both the implementation and perception of humanitarian protection efforts.
Paper short abstract
This paper analyses a widely circulated video recorded after the January 2026 mass political violence in Iran to examine how images mediate witnessing for those absent from the site of violence, and what digital documentation enables or forecloses when justice remains unresolved.
Paper long abstract
This paper examines a single video footage recorded in the immediate aftermath of the mass political violence of 18–19 January 2026 in Iran. Nearly 15 minutes long and shot in a single take, the video follows the recorder as he searches among rows of dead bodies in body bags at Kahrizak in Tehran. The footage drew attention for the scale of violence and the number of dead bodies it revealed amid internet shutdowns imposed by the Iranian regime and restricted access to sites of violence.
Situating the footage within ongoing political claims for justice, the paper asks what such images and their circulation do in the aftermath of political violence I compare the video’s reception among those of us who were absent from the sites of violence with other modes of witnessing and documentation. This includes the analytical work of Forensic Architecture, which used the footage to reconstruct the location and document the number of the dead. Through this comparison, the paper examines how different ways of engaging with images shape what counts as witnessing.
By attending closely to a single, widely circulated video, the paper reflects on the ethical, political, and epistemic stakes of seeing violence through digital images in contemporary conflicts. It asks what kinds of witnessing are enabled, or foreclosed, by digital video documentation, and what possibilities and limits such materials hold for the pursuit of justice, accountability, and historical record when justice itself remains unresolved.