ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates the challenging and sensitive post-conflict debates which definines who is a victim and who is a perpetrator of political violence. Rather than adhering to binary and one-dimensional conceptualisations, questions of victimhood are inherently fluid and speak to notions of identity, agency and context at a minimum. This fluidity has lent itself to the politicisation of key victim's debates. The chapter explores the expropriation and politicisation of victimhood within the political sphere. It argues that, the politicisation of victimhood can constitute one of the sharpest pre- and post-conflict debates and can provide an avenue for the continuation of the conflict. Concerning legitimacy and morality and embedded in debates as to the causes and consequences of conflict itself, Public policies towards victims and perpetrators are therefore deeply moral matters, determining both how the past is looked upon and the future envisaged. Paralleling the use of victimhood by politicians, victims groups themselves can become explicitly politicised can be identified.
