Samenvatting

This article focuses on social mobilisation by victims in societies that are dealing with the legacies of mass human rights violations to better understand how victimisation is collectively shaped and deployed in such post-conflict or post-dictatorial contexts. By looking at how victims organise in function of broader societal demands, the authors aim to widen the one-sided focus on the individual trauma as a precondition of victimhood to include the role of victims as multifaceted political actors. In order to do so, the authors look at three incentives for victim mobilisation in four countries (Peru, Guatemala, Northern-Ireland and Cyprus): expressing concerns about political distrust and an unjust society; meeting the basic needs of victims and their families; and putting women’s rights on the public agenda. The authors argue that a better understanding of victim mobilisation generates insights that can serve the improvement of victim participation in transitional justice processes, as well as enrich debates about citizenship, socio-economic rights and social justice for victims of gross human rights violations.