The Impact of Holistic Justice on the Long-Term Experiences and Wellbeing of Mass Human Rights Violation Survivors: Ethnographic and Interview Evidence From Kosova, Northern Ireland and Albania

Abstract

Research highlights the long-term collective effects of mass human rights violations (MHRVs) on survivors’ wellbeing. This multi-method, multi-context paper combines the social identity approach (SIA), transitional and social justice theories and human rights-conceptualised wellbeing to propose a human rights understanding of trauma responses and experiences in the context of MHRVs. In Study 1, ethnographic research in four locations in Kosova, 5 years post war indicates that lack of perceived conflict-related and social justice is experienced as a key contributor to survivors’ individual and collective wellbeing. In Study 2, 61 semi-structured interviews with MHRVs survivors from post-war Kosova, post-conflict Northern Ireland and post-dictatorship Albania two to three decades post conflict also show that such justice experiences inform wellbeing. These studies illustrate the importance of expanding the SIA to health and trauma theories by taking account of a human rights-conceptualised wellbeing as well as adopting a holistic analysis of justice perception.