The project is comparative. Following the Ragin's prescriptions
for case study comparison (Ragin 1987), the project has a
double aim: It is causal-analytic as it aims through induction to
produce generalizations about regional histories of victimhood; and
it is interpretive, as it pays meticulous attention to the
historical production of victimhood in the two cases. It
explores the cases of: Guatemala, South Africa, Colombia and
Palestine
Contact: Henrik Rønsbo
Within the social sciences it is accepted that the classifiable
forms of victimhood recognized by medicine and psychology fail to
represent the multiple ways in which suffering and death is lived
with. A gap exists between formal classification and lived
experience. However, the origin of this gap in either epistemology
or ontology has been a hotly debated issue for more than two
decades.
Rather than entering the theoretical debate over the nature of
the gap, the project suggests regional histories of victimhood as
these have developed, thus shaping access to services such as
relief, cure, rehabilitation and reparation. Despite the usefulness
of theoretical studies of the gap we suggest to explore it
comparatively through four cases studies.