RG Book Launch 24
in collaboration with the Center for Meta- and Public History (M&P)
Contesting Transitional Justice in Peru: Open Secrets, Hidden Heroes by Eva Willems
Gretel Mejía Bonifazi (Human Rights Center) in conversation with Eva Willems (CRG / Department of History)
Date: Tuesday, October 13, 2026
Time: 11:00- 12:30
Venue: 3rd Floor, Room John Vincke, Technicum 1, UFO Campus, Ghent University, Belgium
ABOUT THE BOOK:
“Contesting transitional justice in Peru explores how global ideas of transitional justice have shaped Peru’s response to the legacies of the internal armed conflict of 1980-2000. Critically interrogating the tenets of transitional justice and drawing on three in-depth case studies from Ayacucho, Eva Willems examines how survivors engage with initiatives regarding memorialisation, truth-telling, reparations and exhumations. Moving beyond the victim-perpetrator divide, she introduces the notion of a multi-layered survivor identity to capture the complex agency of civilians affected by and involved in wartime violence. Using a (meta-)historical lens, Willems reveals how survivors use transitional justice not only to confront the past but also to challenge ongoing structural injustices and claim thicker citizenship. Offering fresh insights into armed conflict and citizenship in Peru and beyond, Contesting transitional justice in Peru rethinks how survivors pursue justice and recognition and how knowledge about (post-)conflict societies is produced.
Purchase the Book: https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526169280/
ABOUT EVA WILLEMS:
Dr. Eva Willems is a historian and researcher in the area of (post)conflict studies. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of History and the Department of Conflict and Development Studies at Ghent University, where she conducts research on civilian participation in armed conflict and the ethical and epistemological challenges related to the use of archives of armed groups.
Her doctoral research on armed conflict and transitional justice in Peru was granted awards by the German Association for Peace and Conflict Studies and the Royal Belgian Academy of Sciences, and nominated for the Jan van Dijk Victimology and Victims’ Rights Award in 2024. After completing her PhD at Ghent University, she held a postdoctoral position at the Philipps University of Marburg in Germany, where she conducted research on reparations for victims of armed conflict in Northern Ireland and Guatemala. Eva’s research has been published in, among others, Memory Studies, Human Rights Quarterly and Crime, Law and Social Change. “Contesting Transitional Justice in Peru” is her first monograph.
ABOUT GRETHEL MEJIÍA
Dr Gretel Mejía Bonifazi is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Justice Visions research team and a co-lecturer at the Human Rights Centre of Ghent University, Belgium. Her work examines the trajectories of mobilisation of survivors in transitional justice processes in Guatemala, with a particular focus on memorialisation and the interaction between grassroots memory practices and international human rights standards.
Gretel is a Guatemalan lawyer specialized in human rights. She holds a PhD in Law from Ghent University (2024), an MA in Human Rights from Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (2017) and a law degree from San Carlos University in Guatemala (2015). Before joining the Human Rights Centre, she conducted legal research on a wide range of transitional justice, human rights and international criminal law topics with the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, the Syrian Archive, the International Nuremberg Principles Academy, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) and the Nuremberg Human Rights Center (NMRZ).
To register, click HERE.