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Seeking Justice Far from Home: A Multi-sited Ethnographic Inquiry into Diaspora Mobilizations in Sweden and Germany in the Aftermath of the Yazidi Genocide

August 2024 will mark the tenth anniversary of the Yazidi Genocide, the 73rd Decree as referred to and historicized by the Yazidis themselves. However, not only are reparation mechanisms and transitional justice options yet to be developed and impunity overcome, but also the thousands of Yazidis who are still missing, mass graves that are not excavated or even mapped, along with the hundreds of thousands displaced in refugee camps characterize the genocide as continuing. This project focuses on the diasporization of Yazidis in Sweden and Germany, where they are densely and actively populated in Europe, to generate ethnographically deep knowledge on the Yazidis’ justice aspirations, the socio-spatial dynamics of their mobilization to trigger change, and the creative, strategic use of international law in their justice pursuits despite the association of all 73 massacres and atrocities they exposed to with law -decrees-. As the research project commenced recently and is currently in its pre-data-collection phase, this seminar will elaborate on its analytical framework, therefore, situate the problematizations by making connections between diasporization and mobilization as never-static dynamic processes of composition alongside affective community-building, and the power relationalities that Yazidi actors are subjected to in Sweden and Germany - from strict migration regimes to the spaces utilized as opportunity structures. It will also draw on the current judicial processes of national jurisdictions and attempt to position the project at hand across different academic debates in conversation with the critiques raised to the legal mobilization research and genocide studies.

Cansu Bostan is a postdoctoral fellow in the Sociology of Law Department, at Lund University. She completed her PhD in Sociology of Law at Lund University with her doctoral thesis “Games of Justice: Ethnographic Inquiries on Space, Subjectivity and Law in Northern Kurdistan” in June 2022. Her academic background involves an MA degree from the Oñati International Institute for the Sociology of Law, Basque Country, and a BSc from the Middle East Technical University, Turkey.