Vulnerability, Space and Conflict-Related Sexual Violence: Building Spatial Resilience

Abstract

This article is about the relationship between vulnerability and space. It examines how vulnerability moves and shifts in relation to space – and more specifically particular types of spaces – and how space both generates vulnerability and affects the experiential ‘living’ of vulnerability. With a specific focus on conflict-related sexual violence, and drawing on empirical data from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Colombia and Uganda, the article situates and discusses the relationship between vulnerability and space within a broader transitional justice framework. Underlining the need for transitional justice processes to give more attention to spaces of vulnerability, it foregrounds the notion of ‘spatial resilience’ as providing a conceptual frame for an ecological remodelling of transitional justice.

Resilience among Children Born of War in northern Uganda

“…Often cited, particularly with respect to children and youth, are temperament, gender, physical health, age, developmental stage, sense of humor, selfesteem, locus of control, family support, parental discipline, spirituality, communal support, intelligence, coping techniques, psychological state, sense of direction or mission, adaptive distancing, androgynous sex roles and realistic appraisal of the environment (Green et al, 1981;Werner and Smith, 1992;McAdam-Crisp, 2006, p. 463). Moreover, studies already offer that social support and family harmony are major factors that shape self-esteem in adolescents (e.g., Han and Kim, 2006), further underscoring the importance of the social-ecology in the shaping of resilience (see also Ungar, 2011;Clark, 2021). In other words, a social-ecological approach to resilience, which this article applies, enables a holistic understanding of the contributing factors of an outcome.…”

“…The literature on resilience in people affected by war and armed conflict have gained traction in the last decade (e.g., McAdam-Crisp, 2006;Klasen et al, 2010;Ferrari and Fernando, 2013;Zuilkowski et al, 2016;Dixon, 2018;Clark, 2021). However, the focus has largely been on former child combatants, survivors of sexual violence, and survivors of genocide with minimal focus on CBOW.…”

Disability and fieldwork: A personal reflection

“…Boesten, 2017: 507; Kreft, 2019: 230) demonstrate everyday resilience – a process that I locate in the interactions between individuals and their wider social ecologies (Ungar, 2011). I do not assume a priori that female and male victims-/survivors of conflict-related sexual violence – heterogeneous individuals with highly diverse stories – are vulnerable on account of what they have gone through (Clark, 2021). Certainly, however, their multiple experiences of violence have exposed the vulnerability of their bodies.…”