Victimhood and voice

The objective of Chapter 4 is to go beyond the existing theory and practice on ‘victim-centred’ transitional justice to examine the challenges, dangers, and contradictions that are inherent to the exercise of victims’ voices. The chapter argues that what we come to hear and know as ‘victims’ voices’ shapes the construction and reproduction of victimhood and often does so in profoundly discomforting ways. The chapter addresses three overlapping areas. First, the chapter examines the intersection between the use of victims’ voices and political claims-making. Second, the chapter addresses the ossification of victims’ voices around their experience of death and injury, with the risk that victims become defined ‘by’ their voice and their identity is reduced to the point of trauma. Third, the chapter turns to a critical examination of the argument that victimhood confers epistemic privilege and how this assumed privilege translates regarding hearing and receiving voice.