Time: Tue Mar 31, 2026, 4:00PM – 5:30PM
Location: Hesburgh Center for International Studies, Rm. C103
Providing redress to victims of wartime violence has become a cornerstone of contemporary transitional justice. Yet, formal transitional justice processes and mechanisms do more than address past injustices. They also construct deeply political narratives of ‘legitimate’ victimhood. The architects of these mechanisms make deliberate choices about whose voices to amplify or marginalize, choices that reflect and (re)produce power.
Alejandro Posada Téllez, who recently completed his Ph.D. in International Relations at the University of Oxford, is the spring 2026 semester recipient of the Kellogg Legacy External Grant, part of The Legacy Project. The Legacy Project External Grants aim to bring outstanding scholar-practitioners to the University of Notre Dame; their focus is on the potential to integrate Colombian Truth Commission transmedia files with peace, conflict, and democracy research at the University.
Drawing on his research on Colombia and Sri Lanka, Posada-Tellez will describe how Colombia’s Truth Commission constructed a narrative of legitimate victimhood, as well as the narrative’s implications for power relations and peacebuilding since the country’s 2016 peace agreement. His talk will examine how the Commission’s transmedia archive elevates some victim identities while silencing others, and how lines between wartime victims and perpetrators are negotiated and drawn. Posada-Tellez also will reflect on the value of this transmedia archive as a tool to research the politics of victimhood, truth, memory and transitional justice.
Josefina Echavarría Álvarez, director of the Kroc Institute’s Peace Accords Matrix program, will kick off the presentation, introducing Posada-Tellez and moderating the discussion. Laura Neftaly Lopez Perez, a doctoral candidate in Political Science at Notre Dame whose research explores questions of civilian responses to victimization in contexts of large-scale criminal and political violence, will serve as a respondent.
Posted In: Kroc Institute Events
