Sexual Violence as a Strategy of War

For victims of wartime sexual violence, the relationship between silence and visibility is tricky. Survivors must bear witness, not only for themselves but for history. And yet too often their experience is adopted and used. This has been the case of the women of Kosovo, whose bodies are seen as embodying the nation and whose suffering is recast as national heroism. Sexual violence is not a side effect of war. It’s a means of war. And if you study the intersection of public policy, social justice, and wartime sexual violence as an academic, it’s hard not to be an activist, too. Our guests include Michael Kennedy, professor of sociology at Brown University and the author of Globalizing Knowledge: Intellectuals, Universities, and Publics in Transformation, and Albanian sociologist Linda Gusia, chair of the Program in Gender Studies and Research at University of Prishtina. You can read a transcript of this episode here: [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dXVJxV2wjYD6gfvCpqgbkf9fAlD6Pvjq/view?usp=sharing]