Neglected Voices: Untold Stories of Gender, Conflict and Transitional Justice in the Great Lakes Region

Abstract

This dissertation consists out of an introduction and one book chapter and three journal articles that are based on extensive field research in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and northern Uganda. The three overarching themes of this dissertation are gender, armed conflict and transitional justice. What binds the four publications is that they all offer critical reflections on hegemonic discourses about the conflicts in these two regions, either by criticizing the underlying assumptions, or by amplifying the voices of victim/survivor groups whose voices are neglected in the dominant narratives. The first two publications are about gender dynamics in eastern DRC and they specifically look at shifts in masculinities, which is often neglected in the study of gender. The last two articles give voice to two neglected survivor groups in post-conflict northern Uganda. They examine how two groups of people are confronted with the legacies of armed violence on a daily basis and the relevance of these groups’ experiences, challenges, needs and aspirations for transitional justice debates and practices in Uganda.