Analyzes the narrative agency of women who have come forward to break silences around wartime atrocities In Troubling Testimonies, Annika Bjoerkdahl, Kristine Hoeglund, and Johanna Mannergren explore the power of women's voices in the aftermath of war. Demonstrating the importance of personal testimony, this book analyzes the narrative agency of women who have courageously come forward to shatter gendered silences around wartime atrocities and who have produced crucial new knowledge about women's experiences of war and its aftermath. Employing a feminist lens, the authors highlight women's powerful testimonies from different post-war contexts; Bosnia and Herzegovina, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, and Iraq. They examine how these testimonies provide insight into complex forms of gender-based violence, such as wartime rapes in Rwanda and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the enslavement of young Yazidi women at the hands of ISIS, and the trauma of "secondary witnessing" in Sri Lanka. Most importantly, they examine how the act of testifying provides agency to the women themselves. The book develops an innovative theoretical framework for understanding narrative agency, offering scholars and practitioners a new tool for analyzing how testimony contributes to transitional justice, peace and transformation after war.
Annika Bjoerkdahl (Author) Annika Bjoerkdahl is Professor of Political Science at Lund University in Sweden. She is the co-author of Peace and the Politics of Memory and Peacebuilding and Spatial Transformation: Peace, Space and Place, and co-editor of The Production of Gendered Knowledge of War: Women and Epistemic Power. Kristine Hoeglund (Author) Kristine Hoeglund is Professor of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University in Sweden. She is the author of Peace Negotiations in the Shadow of Violence and co-editor of The Spatiality of Violence in Post-war Cities. Johanna Mannergren (Author) Johanna Mannergren is Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Soedertoern University in Sweden. She is the co-author of Peace and the Politics of Memory, and co-editor of The Production of Gendered Knowledge of War: Women and Epistemic Power.
"At a time of global backlash against women's rights and escalating conflict, Troubling Testimonies insists on the urgency of listening to women's voices. Through the framework of narrative agency, Bjoerkdahl, Hoeglund, and Mannergren illuminate how women's testimonies not only bear witness to violence but also reshape the foundations of societies emerging from war. Their analysis offers both warning and hope - for the conflicts still unfolding, and for the futures we can yet rebuild." - Jacqui True, co-author of The Dynamics of Conflict Related Sexual and Gender Based Violence: Comparing Impact Across Global Regions "This is an important book by world class scholars. The book's gendered lens points to the importance of power and agency in terms of who gets to tell the story or peace and conflict, and who does not. This is a particularly engaging book that expertly blends case studies with concept and theory-building. It is highly recommended." - Roger Mac Ginty, author of Everyday Peace: How So-called Ordinary People Can Disrupt Violent Conflict
