Focusing on the case of Palestine, this project explores whether, and if so how, innovations in documentation by civil society actors help sustain the pursuit of accountability for human rights violations and mass atrocities in a context where the actors are restricted and faced with risks on the ground in an internationally unsupportive, acquiescent environment.
The research investigates community-based resistance to international crimes through documentation. It examines how documentation efforts advance the pursuit of justice in the presence of forced displacement and/or ethnic cleansing coupled with population transfer, and genocide.
This research also re-examines how documentation practices could reshape the goals and methods of transitional justice that takes into account colonial continuities and reimagines a reality where equality of rights and dignity is ensured for all; a paradigm shift that could lead to reconciliation, and around which civil society and grassroots actors could coalesce to co-create and advance sound justice.
The research project applies an ecosystemic framework to explore how grass-roots actors – Palestinian, Israeli and international – perceive and employ innovations in documentation to adapt to restrictions and risks and sustain the ability to pursue justice. It studies how these documentation practices may shape or influence transitional justice initiatives in the context of ongoing conflict and hostility towards accountability.
