Meet the team

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  Dr Harriet Gray

  Principal Investigator

  Harriet is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics at the University of York. Her research interests fall within the overlapping fields of critical military studies, critical war studies, and feminist IR. Her work to date has revolved in various ways around unpacking the gendered processes through which various harmful acts come to be understood (or, do not come to be understood) as ‘violence,’ as ‘sexual/gender-based violence’ and as ‘conflict-related sexual/gender-based violence’ – and in the political implications of these definitional processes. Previous projects have focused on domestic violence in the British military and conflict-related sexual violence in the African Great Lakes region. This project, Harriet’s first as PI, builds on her previous work by tracing the politics and implications of defining and representing violence through the memorials which are its focus. Find out more about Harriet’s work on the University of York Research Database.  

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  Dr Phoebe Martin

  Postdoctoral Research Associate

  Phoebe Martin is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of York. Her recently completed PhD on ‘Visual and Embodied Politics: Activism and the Contemporary Feminist Movement in Peru’ looked at how feminist activists in Peru use creative interventions around gender violence and reproductive justice. These actions, including art, performance and audiovisual media, target cultural and societal change. It argued that these practices are critical for sustaining and developing social movements in the face of the growing backlash against feminism. Her research interests include social movements, artistic activism, and the feminist politics of representation and visibility.

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  Professor Jelke Boesten

  Project Mentor

  Jelke is Professor in Gender and Development at Kings College London. She is an expert on sexual violence across the war/peace continuum. Her current research focuses on how interventions to address gendered injustice, such as violence against women and girls, could aim to transform the social, political and economic relations that underpin the possibility of violence. She is particularly interested in memorialisation as a form of symbolic reparation for gender-based violence in post-conflict spaces, and has recently completed work on a project entitled Gender Justice Memory which looks at these very issues. Her recently published collection Gender, Transitional Justice and Memorial Arts, edited together with Helen Scanlon, speaks closely to many of the questions raised by the project. Jelke is also co-convenes the Visual and Embodied Methodologies Network at King’s College London, and is working on a collaborative arts-based research project called Imaging Social Justice. Find out more about Jelke’s work on the Kings College London Research Database.  

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  Professor Paul Gready

  Project Mentor

  Paul is the Director of the Centre for Applied Human Rights at the University of York. He is an expert in transitional justice, including memorialisation, and has significant experience of working with arts-based methods. Paul has worked for Amnesty International (on East and Southern Africa, and India) and a number of other international and national human rights organisations, and has wide-ranging experience as a human rights consultant. In addition to transitional justice, his research interests include human rights practice, human rights and development, culture and human rights, and human rights cities. Most of Paul's current research focuses on the development of critical and constructive alternatives to the mainstream. This work is informed by the belief that the current political moment requires new ways of thinking and working. Find out more about Paul’s work on the University of York Research Database.