Overview
* Reframes major events like South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the Holocaust, and the war in Bosnia to take into account the "complex victim"
* Calls for a more effective and encompassing support of all types of victims, especially those not typically recognized as such
Images of the political victim are powerful, gripping, and integral in helping us makes sense of conflict, particularly in making moral calculations, determining who is "good" and who is "evil". These images, and the discourse of victimization that surrounds them, inform the international community when deciding to recognize certain individuals as victims and play a role in shaping response policies. These policies in turn create the potential for long term, stable peace after episodes of political victimization.
Bouris finds weighty problems with this dichotomous conception of actors in a conflict, which pervades much of contemporary peacebuilding scholarship. She instead argues that victims, much like the conflicts themselves, are complex. Rather than use this complexity as a way to dismiss victims or call for limits on the response from the international community, the book advocates for greater and more effective responses to conflict.
Synopsis
* Reframes major events like South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the Holocaust, and the war in Bosnia to take into account the "complex victim"
* Calls for a more effective and encompassing support of all types of victims, especially those not typically recognized as such
Images of the political victim are powerful, gripping, and integral in helping us makes sense of conflict, particularly in making moral calculations, determining who is "good" and who is "evil". These images, and the discourse of victimization that surrounds them, inform the international community when deciding to recognize certain individuals as victims and play a role in shaping response policies. These policies in turn create the potential for long term, stable peace after episodes of political victimization.
Bouris finds weighty problems with this dichotomous conception of actors in a conflict, which pervades much of contemporary peacebuilding scholarship. She instead argues that victims, much like the conflicts themselves, are complex. Rather than use this complexity as a way to dismiss victims or call for limits on the response from the international community, the book advocates for greater and more effective responses to conflict.
Editorials
From the Publisher
"Erica Bouris has published the type of book that rarely appears but is so badly needed - a fresh analysis of a concept we all assume we understand (victim) and that does quite a lot of work in our assumptions about conflict, violence and international affairs more generally. Her arguments draw on a wide range of theoretical sources and speaks to those working in conflict resolution and normative theory most directly, but have relevance for many other fields as well. She has accomplished what Hannah Arendt, upon whose work she draws, called us to do - think what we are doing. Bouris has raised the bar for scholarship in a range of areas in this penetrating new book.""Erica Bouris has written a thought-provoking book on the complexity of victim identity, demonstrating how bifurcated and simplistic representations of victimhood contribute to a social and political dynamic that can facilitate further violence. She argues convincingly for a more complex and ‘messy’ representation of victims. This book should be read by anyone interested in truth recovery and post-conflict reconstruction."
"From page one, Erica Bouris' gripping account of the social construction of political victims is heart wrenching to read, yet impossible to put down. Her empirical comparisons of the Holocaust, the war in Bosnia and South African apartheid demonstrate the faulty logic though which some victims are assigned moral status, provoking policy concern, while others are blamed for their own misery. In a world of increasing complex conflicts, where even children sometimes perpetrate war crimes, her call for a less simplistic understanding of victimization has never been more timely. Bouris' theory of the "complex political victim" challenges the idea that true victims are, and must be, innocent and righteous, and points policy-makers, scholars and citizens to a more nuanced moral understanding for the new century."
"Represents a contribution to this otherwise understudied area within human rights scholarship.... a rich narrative that elegantly traces, compares, and contrasts "ideal" and "complex" victim discourses.... Getting policymakers and others to shift their understanding from "ideal" to "complex" political victim may indeed achieve many of the outcomes Bouris posits.... Her work helps us better understand what [corollary tensions that do not benefit victims] may be, while at the same time encouraging policymakers not to run from or avoid them, but rather to take the first steps toward engaging them."