Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
Once an activist, always an activist. This maxim seems to prevail even when one enters the world of research and academia, marked by its ostensible “objectivity” and “neutrality”. I started as an activist and ended up – for now at least – in academia.
As a researcher of transitional justice since 2008, focusing on Afghanistan, I have remained engaged with victims at close proximity. The concept of victimhood is particularly complex in Afghanistan, considering that, over decades, one brutal and repressive regime has led to another, afflicting millions of lives. Many have been victimized under all regimes; some have been perpetrators under one and victims under another.