ABSTRACT
This Introduction gives an overview of the entire book and its key arguments. It emphasises that the research constitutes the first major – and comparative – study of resilience with a particular focus on victims-/survivors of conflict-related sexual violence, and it discusses three core elements of the book that make it highly original. All of them are linked to the concept of social ecologies, which broadly refers to everything that individuals have around them – including emotionally, physically, spiritually and practically. First, the book develops a novel social-ecological approach to resilience. Using the concept of connectivity, which it borrows from the field of ecology, it explores resilience through the many connectivities between individuals and their social ecologies, and the stories and dynamics of those connectivities. Second, the research is based on three case studies – Bosnia-Herzegovina, Colombia and Uganda – and draws on a unique empirical dataset. It uses the book’s connectivity framework to analyse the qualitative data and to unpack the significance of individuals’ social ecologies in shaping possibilities for and contextual expressions of resilience. Third, the book examines the wider relevance of its connectivity framework for transitional justice, and ultimately it makes the case for developing the field in new social-ecological directions.
