Prof. Dr. Annika Björkdahl

As a Visiting Fellow with TraCe, I will continue my research on women, peace and security from the perspective of political violence.

My research interest includes spatial approaches to peace and peace­building, transitional justice, memory politics, norms in IR, as well as gender and peace. First, I conduct re­search on memory politics in societies that grapple with the painful legacies of the violent past in a collabo­rative research project Politics of Memory and Cultural Heritage of War, funded by the Swedish Research Council. Our research findings from Cyprus, Rwanda and Bosnia-Herzegovina demon­strate the strength with which memories of past violence affect the quality of peace in the present. Second, within the re­search project Troubling Testimonies we collect and analyse women’s testi­monies of war from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, and Syria/Iraq with the aim of gendering knowledge of war. Third, building on my re­search on UNSCR 1325 and Women Peace and Security, and norms, I am currently re­searching the Backlash on the WPS agenda.

Research Area Interpretations: 3.2 Memories of Violence | 3.3 Interpretation of Violence in the City