Engendering Transitional Justice: a Transformative Approach to Building Peace and Attaining Human Rights for Women

In this article, we examine the continuity of harms and traumas experienced by women before, during and after war and other mass violence. We focus on women because of the particular challenges they face in accessing justice due to patriarchal structures and ongoing discrimination in the political, economic and social, as well as legal spheres, and because of the gendered nature of the crimes and harms they experience. We use the four key pillars of transitional justice identified by the United Nations as a framework to analyse how these harms are addressed in the context of criminal prosecutions, truth commissions, reparations and institutional reform. We conclude that a gender-transformative approach to transitional justice that focuses on transforming psychosocial, socioeconomic and political power relations in society is needed in order to attain human rights for women and build a sustainable peace.     

Lessons in suffering: Greek tragedy’s teachings on disability through Sophocles’ Philoctetes

Political theory often sees disability through the negative language of abnormality and inability, which perceives disability as a deficiency that deviates from the able-bodied. However, critical disability studies strives to transform the disabling language of political theory into an enabling project that sees the ability, unique perspectives, capacities, and contributions of people with disabilities. Through Sophocles’ Philoctetes, this article examines the negative ways in which disability is conceptualized, socially constructed, and (dis)valued, as well as the possibilities for a positive and enabling theory of disability. The character of Philoctetes exposes the negative social construction of disability as well as the extraordinary ability of those who live with chronic impairments. The Philoctetes meditates on the status of the disabled who are unfairly isolated from human community and who are often unfairly seen in an instrumental fashion that fails to recognize their fundamental status as human beings who are capable, valuable, and essential for the success of human endeavors and community. For political theory, the Philoctetes demonstrates the ability in disability, and shines brightly on the essential contributions that people with disabilities make in our societies. Philoctetes shows that the lives of people who live daily with chronic impairments need not be seen as necessarily tragic. Instead, these modes of being speak to human diversity, ingenuity, and triumph.     

„Outstanding universal value“. Die Arbeit an der Universalisierung des Wertvollen im UNESCO-Welterbe

The UNESCO World Heritage List is an international inventory of natural and cultural sites that are, according to the conception of its initiators and administrators, of importance for mankind as a whole. The evaluation of the list can be interpreted as a specific form of the social production of the valuable. Focusing on the cultural sites, the paper argues that the production of World Heritage renders a form of practical universalization of the value of particular goods. It centres on the questions of how a site is produced as culturally valuable, how its value is universalized, and what role is played by the concept of authenticity in the process. Two aspects of the evaluation practice are examined with regards to the production of universalization: working with and working on the assessment criteria. It is shown that universality and particularity are interwoven in this practice.