Transitional Justice For and By Children and Childhoods
Workshop: October 26-27 at the University of Saskatchewan
Location: Diefenbaker Centre, University of Saskatchewan
Zoom link: email kirsten.fisher [at] usask.ca to register for link
Inspired by some of the recent discussions we’ve been a part of during the last year, we, Kirsten Fisher and Caitlin Mollica, saw a need to develop a space for more targeted discussions about the intersection of transitional justice/post-atrocity justice; children’s agency, subjecthood, rights, and advocacy; and conceptions of childhood that reflect, inform, or diminish children’s roles. Scholarly engagement with childhoods’ in transitional justice draws predominantly upon Western liberal philosophical principles, which prioritize rights-based, legally-oriented, universalized understandings (Lee-Koo 2020; Watson 2006). Whilst these framings offer important contributions, recent scholarly interventions in international relations (Beier (ed)2020; Beier & Berents (eds) forthcoming) have challenged us to look beyond these to reimagine and recast childhoods as diverse, ever-evolving ‘social constructions’ (Brocklehurst 2015). Given this, we are interested in how these discourses and evolutions in the notion of childhoods’ could offer new contributions to our understanding of children’s place and agency in the transitional justice field.
Wonderfully, a group of fantastic individuals have joined us to engage in these discussions.
Children have a key stake in the outcomes of transitional justice (TJ), yet often the nature of their contributions and capacities is rendered invisible by the institutions and actors responsible for pursuing accountability in these contexts.While children's agency is increasingly acknowledged in post conflict environments, their subjecthood remains contested. An extensive body of work that critically investigates and theorizes the relationship between transitional justice mechanisms and child soldiers exists (Fisher 2013; Nylund 2016; Stein & Stein 2017). However, despite a few notable exceptions, broader discourses on children and childhoods in the context of transitional justice remain largely unexplored (Nilsson 2013; Parmer et al. 2010). By investigating the interactions of children with transitional justice practices as child soldiers and beyond, this edited collection seeks to reveal and engage with new debates and to revisit past discourses in new ways.
While retributive (legal), state-centric, and institutionalized approaches remain dominant in the transitional justice field, critical scholarship, activism, and practice have accelerated attempts to normalize alternative approaches that are less exclusionary and more responsive to context, voice, and community. Customary, restorative, and holistic approaches (Salehi 2022; Reiter 2016), are increasingly recognised as essential to the fulfillment of TJ aims. Our aim for this volume therefore, is to consider how children’s engagement with transitional justice and notions of childhood(s) prompt new interventions and directions for theorizing transitional justice, and its evolution more broadly.
We are interested in work that speaks to the variety of ways in which the theory and reality of TJ, children, and childhoods intersect.
Questions of interest include but are not limited to:
How have evolutions in TJ worked to protect children in new ways or to reinforce pre-existing protection mandates: including, how do TJ projects aim to protect children who participated in atrocity from stigmatization and further victimization by the post-atrocity society? What institutional changes are or should be promoted by TJ to protect future children and how successful are they?
How do children participate in TJ: How do they use their voices to advocate for their needs? How are their messages received by the adults engaged in TJ? How could child participation be encouraged? What challenges does child participation face or does child participation bring? How do TJ mechanisms address harm committed by children?
How are childhoods constructed and enacted through TJ processes? How does the work that TJ does to protect children speak to our conceptions of childhood? How does this work reinforce/or challenge dominant narratives of childhood?
How do critical perspectives to TJ, including but not limited to feminist, queer, indigenous, decolonial, postcolonial, marxist, transformative, restorative understand the contributions of children and childhood(s) to the realization of accountability for human rights violations?
It is our hope to begin this process with a virtual workshop with which we can share ideas. While the anticipated result of this work is an edited volume, it is possible to contribute to the online workshop and not contribute to the book project. Acceptance to the workshop will not demand or guarantee contribution to the book as we will identify appropriate linkages and themes during the workshop that will inform the book. We hope to hold an in-person workshop later to finalize the work of the manuscript.
References
Beier, J. M. (Ed.). (2020). Discovering childhood in international relations. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan
Beier, J.M & Berents, H. (Eds.)(forthcoming). Children, Childhoods and Global Politics. Bristol Press.
Brocklehurst, H. (2015). The state of play: Securities of childhood–insecurities of children. Critical Studies on Security, 3(1), 29-46.
Fisher, Kirsten J. (2013). Transitional Justice for Child Soldiers: Accountability and Social Reconstruction in Post-Conflict Contexts. Palgrave.
Lee-Koo, K. (2020). Decolonizing childhood in international relations. Discovering childhood in international relations, 21-40.
Reiter, A. G. (2016). The development of transitional justice. In An introduction to transitional justice (pp. 29-46). Routledge.
Salehi, M. (2022). Transitional justice in process: Plans and politics in Tunisia. In Transitional justice in process. Manchester University Press.
Steinl, L. (2017). Child Soldiers as Agents of War and Peace: A Restorative Transitional Justice Approach to Accountability for Crimes Under International Law. Springer.
Nilsson, A. C. (2013). Armed Conflict, Transitional Justice and Children and Youth. In Children and Youth in Armed Conflict (2 vols.) (pp. 1133-1322). Brill Nijhoff.
Nylund, B. (2016). Child Soldiers and Transitional Justice: Protecting the Rights of Children Involved in Armed Conflicts. Intersentia.
Parmar, S., Roseman, M. J., Siegrist, S., & Sowa, T. (Eds.). (2010). Children and transitional justice: truth-telling, accountability and reconciliation (Vol. 2). Harvard University Press.
Watson, A. M. (2006). Children and International Relations: a new site of knowledge?. Review of International Studies, 32(2), 237-250.