"Good Victims." Book Talk with Roxani Krystalli

Join us for an engaging discussion with Roxani Krystalli as she presents her latest book, "Good Victims." Explore the themes of resilience, survival, and justice in conflict zones. The event will take place at G.03 26 Bedford Way, so mark your calendars and bring your questions for the author.

As of 2023, more than nine million Colombians have secured official recognition as victims of an armed conflict that has lasted decades. The category of ‘victim' is not a mere description of having suffered harm, but a political status and a potential site of power. Good Victims investigates the political as a feminist question. What kind of politics is the politics of victimhood? What does it mean to understand the victim subject as a political subject, and the political subject as shaped through victimhood? Based on in-depth engagement in Colombia, this book and the corresponding talk demonstrate the possibilities of politics through, rather than in opposition to, the status of ‘victim'. Victims do not merely exist; they are also made, not only through acts of violence during war, but also through acts of bureaucratic affirmation in its tenuous aftermath. Good Victims shows how victimhood becomes a pillar of reimagining the state, and of bringing a vision of it into being through bureaucratic encounters in the wake of war. Directing feminist curiosity towards how different actors experience, produce, and contest victimhood, Good Victims also sheds light on the ethical and methodological dilemmas that arise when seeking to understand the legacies of transitional justice mechanisms. Finally, this talk will connect Dr Krystalli’s research on victimhood to her current collaborative work with Philipp Schulz on the politics of love and care in the wake of loss. Both victimhood and love are often labelled political – what are those political meanings and how might they offer up different ways to live in the face of loss?

About the speaker
Dr Roxani Krystalli is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. Her interdisciplinary research and teaching focus on feminist peace and conflict studies, as well as on the politics of nature and place. She is currently the co-Principal Investigator of a research project on the politics of love and care in the wake of violence, ecological loss, and mass grief. This work is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the German Research Foundation, and unfolds in collaboration with Dr Philipp Schulz. Roxani's first book, Good Victims: The Political as a Feminist Question, was published by Oxford University Press in 2024.