School of Social and Political Science

Description

The Centre of African Studies is pleased to invite you to the following book launch as part of its seminar series.

Speaker: Dr Laura S. Martin, Assistant Professor of Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham

Chair & Discussant: Dr Simeon Koroma, Research Fellow CAS, University of Edinburgh

In post-war Sierra Leone, a range of transitional justice mechanisms were implemented to address experiences of conflict, violence, and human rights violations. Much of the research on local transitional justice processes has focused on the work of formal institutions, failing to acknowledge how individual and communal dynamics shape and are shaped by them. During her talk, Dr Martin will discuss how Sierra Leoneans navigated their own personal circumstances during the conflict and post-conflict period. Developing the idea of recognised and unrecognised transitional justice processes, the book explores Fambul Tok as an example of a recognised local transitional justice program and shows how ordinary Sierra Leoneans appropriated Fambul Tok's agenda for their own purposes, highlighting the agencies of a diverse range of actors in shaping transitional justice processes. Justice, as Martin ultimately argues, is not something that happens to or for people, but is enacted by individuals and communities.

When: Wednesday 25th October 2023 (3:30pm-5pm BST)

Where: Please join us at Chrystal Macmillan Building, Seminar Room 1

To attend this event: Please register on Eventbrite

Speaker Biography:

Dr Laura S. Martin is an Assistant Professor of Politics and International Relations (with a focus on African Politics) at the University of Nottingham and a lecturer at the University of Makeni, Sierra Leone.  She is a qualitative and ethnographic researcher and has spent over ten years conducting fieldwork in Sierra Leone.  Dr Martin has a wide range of research interests including post-conflict transitional justice and peacebuilding, the politics of humour and violence, sexual and gender-based violence, and gender politics more broadly.  She is also the co-author of the book Humour and Politics in Africa: Beyond Resistance (2023, Bristol University Press) and has published her research in a wide range of academic journals including Third World Quarterly, Cooperation and Conflict, Critical African Studies and the Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding.  

Chair & Discussant:

Dr Simeon Koroma is a Research Fellow, currently working on the Trust Fund for Victims Evaluation project, which explores how reparations, awarded by the International Criminal Court, affect the wellbeing and sense of justice of victims. His research interests include legal systems, courts, disputing processes, state-building, post-conflict reforms, human rights, justice, access to justice, and understanding how law manifests in the daily lives of citizens. 

Simeon's PhD thesis titled 'Law Beyond the State: the Makings of Justice in Urban Sierra Leone' was awarded the Audrey Richards Prize for the best judged PhD dissertation on an African Studies related subject in a British University.