I am interested in how the everyday experiences of people affected by violence enable or limit transformative solutions toward peace and justice. This interest spans disciplinary boundaries and geographies, putting me in touch with diverse fields like human rights, law, political science and peace studies in both war-affected countries and peaceful democracies. I bring to this work my training in social theory and mixed-methodologies as well as my experience working in international organizations like the United Nations and International Criminal Court.

My current research is supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, United States Institute of Peace, Inter-American Foundation, Humanity United and UC Berkeley Possibility Lab. My previous research has been supported by the Jacob K. Javits Foundation, the International Studies Association, the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation and the UC Berkeley Human Rights Center.

research streams

Peace, Conflict and the Everyday: In this research stream, I seek to understand how people affected by violence experience and define peace and conflict in their daily lives—and what makes these grounded, everyday understandings more or less relevant for broader policy processes. I am also interested in methodological and ethical questions about how to center affected and researched communities so that the research process can be less extractive and more productive for those involved.

Measures of Justice: Relatedly, my research focuses on how justice is perceived, defined and enacted in transitional and restorative justice processes. I am interested in what makes justice processes meaningful for those affected by violence at both individual and community levels, and in why institutions adopt certain visions of justice over others. This stream anchors my current book project, Measures for Justice: Building Community in Conflict.

Peaceful Diversity: This is a new research stream toward which I will be pivoting in my work over the next few years, bringing together my work on everyday indicators, justice processes and community-building. Focusing on diverse sites of community building in the United States, I will seek to draw broader lessons about the mechanisms that inhibit and foster coexistence in times of polarization.

indicators & Community voice (WEBINAR)

Current Projects

Completed Projects

Reparations, Responsibility and Victimhood in Transitional Societies (2018-2022)

I was an international co-investigator on this UK-based project comparing reparations programs in seven transitional countries around the world. This collaborative effort, based out of Queens University Belfast, produced several international guidelines and handbooks on lessons learned and best practices for the provision of reparations after conflict.

• Forthcoming “Transitional Justice and Development.” Research Handbook on Transitional Justice, Second Edition, edited by Cheryl Lawther, Luke Moffett, and Dov Jacobs. London: Edward Elgar Publishing.

• 2022 Belfast Guidelines on Reparations in Post-Conflict Societies. Queen’s University, Belfast.

• 2022 Handbook on Civil Society Organizations and Donors Engagement on Reparations. Queen’s University, Belfast.

• 2019 Alternative Sanctions before the Special Jurisdiction for Peace: Reflections on International Law and Transitional Justice. Belfast: Queens University Belfast.

• 2019 “Postconflict Reparations.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies, edited by William R. Thomson. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

• 2017 “Transitional Justice and Development.” Research Handbook on Transitional Justice, edited by Cheryl Lawther, Luke Moffett, and Dov Jacobs. London: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Evaluation of Colombia’s national reparations program (2014-2015)

This project brought together an interdisciplinary team of researchers from Harvard University to conduct a multidimensional evaluation of Colombia’s national Victims’ Unit, established through the historic Law 1448 of 2011. Law 1448 set in place the world’s largest national reparations programs to date, with almost 20% of Colombia’s population registered as victims of the armed conflict. The evaluation assessed the work and impact of the Victims’ Unit on three levels: (1) cross-nationally, in comparison with other national, administrative reparations programs (focusing on Indonesia, Peru, and Guatemala), (2) institutionally, through an in-depth analysis of the Unit’s internal organizational structures and external relationships, and (3) on the ground, through nationally representative surveys of victims of the armed conflict and the national population.

• 2016 “Evaluating Transitional Justice: The Role of Multi-Level Mixed Methods Datasets and the Colombia Reparation Program for War Victims.” Transitional Justice Review.

• 2015 “Evaluation of Integral Reparations Measures in Colombia: Executive Summary". Harvard Kennedy School Carr Center for Human Rights.

  • Press coverage @ Harvard Gazette

dissertation (UC Berkeley 2012-2015)

The International Criminal Court is a deeply divisive international organization. To some, it is the political pawn of neocolonial states; while for others, it represents hope for millions of victims of the world’s gravest crimes. The autonomy and authority of international justice, however, remain poorly understood. In this dissertation, I examined the social conditions of power in the international justice field. Contrary to notions of victims as a mere rhetorical or symbolic concern of global governance, I argue that victims have been central to the ICC’s struggles to consolidate its autonomy and overcome fundamental sources of illegitimacy, both from the states whose sovereignty it threatens and the communities whose interests it claims to represent. To manage these threats, the ICC has come to depend on a variety of victim-centric practices, the majority of which ultimately serve its institutional interests while reinforcing local cycles of violence. At the same time, the ICC has displayed remarkable flexibility in crafting creative responses to victims that can serve as models for the practice of justice in the future. Ultimately, this analysis clarifies the social conditions of autonomy in fields of global governance, highlighting the productive practices that shape their authority and their relationship to vulnerable populations.

• 2017 “Reparations in the Transition from Violence to Peace.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics, edited by Renée Marlin-Bennett. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

• 2016 “Reparations, Assistance and the Experience of Justice: Lessons from Colombia and the Congo.” International Journal of Transitional Justice.

  • Blog post @ Beyond The Hague

• 2015 “Reparations and the Politics of Recognition.” Contested Justice: The Politics and Practice of International Criminal Court Interventions, edited by Carsten Stahn, Christian de Vos, and Sara Kendall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

• 2015 Constructing Humanity’s Conscience: Violence, Victims, and the Practice of Justice in the Congo. University of California, Berkeley.

• 2014 Le Droit de Connaitre: Vérité et Reconciliation en Ituri. Amsterdam: IKV Pax Christi.

• 2013 "International Criminal Justice as a Transnational Field: Rules, Authority and Victims." International Journal of Transitional Justice.

  • Blog post @ Justice in Conflict

• 2011 Reviewing Rehabilitation Assistance and Preparing for Delivering Reparations. The Hague: International Criminal Court, Trust Fund for Victims.

Upcoming Projects

MEASURING SUCCESS in community justice

In this project, I will use in-depth interviews and focus groups to explore the relationship between local courts and their various stakeholders in community justice processes. Community courts offer a non-adversarial alternative to traditional criminal proceedings, but less is known about the roles that communities play or the contributions these courts make to their communities. Through comparisons of Oakland, CA and Brooklyn, NY I will assess community courts as community-building institutions to draw broader conclusions about the role of restorative justice in building community and fostering wellbeing.

social trust in the criminal justice system

This is a collaborative effort at its beginning stages which stems from my involvement in the Salzburg Global Seminar’s program on Youth Violence. I will be supporting an international team of legal scholars and social scientists on a new initiative to develop and implement a metric of social trust as a measure of criminal justice effectiveness in peaceful democracies. We will start in the city of London with future possible sites including New York City and Chicago.

Community and Polarization in the United States

I am interested in applying and extending the “local zones of peace” literature to peaceful democracies like the United States. In the face of extreme polarization and segregation, the question of how diverse communities can coexist peacefully in the US is of paramount importance. Looking at communities of varying sizes, from mixed-income housing developments to neighborhoods on the frontlines of gentrification, I will seek out spaces where people are forming communal bonds across racial, political and economic lines.

Banner Photo: Peter Dixon, Bunia, Democratic Republic of the Congo