Legacies of War: Violence, Ecologies, and Kin

by Kimberly Theidon

In Legacies of War Kimberly Theidon examines the lives of children born of wartime rape and the experiences of their mothers and communities to offer a gendered theory of harm and repair. Drawing on ethnographic research in postconflict Peru and Colombia, Theidon considers the multiple environments in which conception, pregnancy, and childbirth unfold. She reimagines harm by taking into account the impact of violence on individual people as well as on more-than-human lives, bodies, and ecologies, showing how wartime violence reveals the interdependency of all life. She also critiques policy makers, governments, and humanitarian organizations for their efforts at postconflict justice, which frequently take an anthropocentric rights-based approach that is steeped in liberal legalism. Rethinking the intergenerational reach of war while questioning what counts as sexual and reproductive violence, Theidon calls for an explicitly feminist peace-building and postconflict agenda that includes a full range of sexual and reproductive rights, including access to safe and affordable abortions.

128 pages, Paperback

Published August 5, 2022

Reviews

[ConfusedMagpie]

This is an extremely frustrating book, as it is so disorganized and superficial in its exploration of too many topics that it left me feeling i had only scratched the surface of various analysis that required further exploration. Still several worthy reflections and ethnographies, so 3 stars, but barely.

[Kathleen Stauffer,]

Powerful account of the complexities of war and the internecine, inherent shockwaves that humans, nature and culture absorb. Haunting, important and game-changing in its clear and unflinching assessment of the horrors of war, its effect on women, children, men and the environment.

[stardustreader]

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