Unspeakable Truths: Political Violence, Gender, and Reconciliation in the Balkans and Spain (Basque Country)

Dartmouth Symposium 
April 14-16, 2022
Unspeakable Truths: 
Political Violence, Gender, and Reconciliation
in the Balkans and Spain (Basque Country)

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Armed political conflict is no stranger to contemporary Europe. Radicalized nationalist ideologies, state-sanctioned ethnic and religious violence, revolutionary separatist organizations, state-supported armies and police forces turning against civilian populations, insurgents and counter-insurgents, a long list of actors embodying the dance of death in recent times. Unspeakable Truths will focus on the aftermath and the road to recovery from two conflicts that have effaced European societies in recent history: the Balkan wars of the 1990s and the Basque ETA armed conflict in Spain-France (1959-2011).

Unspeakable Truths picks up where guns left off. This symposium will bring to Dartmouth College a series of international leaders, thinkers, and artists involved in the areas of political violence and reconciliation, in the ugliness of radical cultural identity, and the dark gender underpinnings of war.

The symposium wishes to highlight the reparative turn in which these societies are immersed. How do communities that have turned a blind eye to processes of dehumanization, that have defaced the "you-in-me," come back to moral life? As new pedagogies of nonviolence take hold, as the scale of war is exchanged for the scale of peace, the moral souring of each society's social climate gradually dissolves. Unspeakable Truths will bring together a sample of these new conversations as our speakers (direct protagonists) highlight the avenues redrawn through the delicacy of memory, responsibility towards the dead, reparation of survivors, truth commissions, processes of restorative justice, and of course, the internal movement that art provokes in the heart and mind. 

The conference will always honor the geopolitical specificity of each conflict while also strive to put processes of reconciliation into dialogue by facilitating exchanges between political leaders, peace mediators, associations for victims, public intellectuals, and artists of the different conflicts.

OBJECTIVES

• Understand the complexity of human rights violations underlying the wrongs of war;
• Highlight the issues of gender identity motivating war and conflict;
• Address the gender specificity of the war-time crimes of rape and torture;
• Underline the role of affect during times of violence, i.e., understand how political violence requires distinguishing between grievable lives; 
• Emphasize the success of restorative justice experiences;
• Call attention to the Involvement of the arts in processes of individual and collective healing.

Annabel Martín
Dept of Spanish and Portuguese,
WGSS, and Comparative Literature

Schedule of Events
Friday Presentations
Special Guests
Participants

Schedule of Events
All events are free and open to the public

Thursday April 14th	Friday April 15th	Saturday April 16th
	9-10:15 am Balkan Panel 1 (See Program) Haldeman 041	9:30-11:00 Workshop Transitional Justice Haldeman 041
11:00 am-12:30pm Kosovo Documentary- Thinking of You Discussion with President Atifete Jahjaga and Anna Di Lellio Rockefeller Center-1930s Room	Break (10:15-10:30) 10:30-11:45 (See Program) Balkan Panel 2 Haldeman 041
	12:00-1:00 pm Lunch Haldeman 031
3pm-4pm Dartmouth Students Book Presentation: Transatlantic Letters: An Epistolary Exchange Between Basque and US Students on Violence and Community Digital version available in Spanish and English Leslie Center for the Humanities (Haldeman 246)	1:15pm-2:30 pm Basque Panel 1 (See Program) Haldeman 041
4:30pm-6:30pm Conversation: President Jahjaga, Zainab Salbi, James Nachtwey Filene Auditorium	2:45 pm-4:00 pm Basque Panel 2 (See Program) Haldeman 041
7:00pm-9:00pm Film Maixabel (Info & Tickets) Conversation with Maixabel Lasa Loew Theater (VAC)	4:30-6:00 pm Zainab Salbi Keynote Filene Auditorium

 

Friday Presentations

Balkan Panel 1
Responsibility and Care: Civil Society and Political Violence

9:00-10:15 am
041 Haldeman

Moderator: Sabiha Husič
Medica Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina

 

Remzije Istrefi
University of Prishtina Law School, Kosovo
Magistrate Kosovo Constitutional Court
"Prosecuting Conflict-Related Sexual Violence in Kosovo: Challenges and Prospects"

Dasa Huhaček
Department of Gender and Women's Studies
University of Belgrade, Serbia
"Teaching Responsibility in Times of War"

Vjollca Krasniqi
Department of Sociology, University of Prishtina, Kosovo
"Transitional Justice: Gender, Memory, and Art"

Anna Di Lellio
Graduate Program in International Relations, New York University
Thinking Outside the Box: Breaking the Power of the Stigma of Sexual Violence

 

 

Balkan Panel 2
Fighting Exclusion: The Role of Women's Organizations

10:30-11:45 am
041 Haldeman

Moderator: Lisa Adams
Center for Global Health Equity and Geisel School of Medicine

 

Sabiha Husič
Medica Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina
"Solidarity and support for survivors of war rape and sexual violence in Bosnia and Herzegovina"

Mirlinda Sada
Medica Gjakova, Kosovo
"Amplifying Voices of Women Affected by War-Related Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) in Kosovo"

Brikena Avdyli
Jahjaga Foundation
"Creative Solutions in Fighting Exclusion: The case of the Jahjaga Foundation"

Vlora Nushi
UN Women, Kosovo
"Gender Sensitive Transitional Justice in Kosovo through UN Women's Support"

 

 

Basque Panel 1
Collective Conversations: Can the Arts and Humanities Mediate Political Violence?

1:15-2:30
041 Haldeman

Moderator: Txetxu Aguado
Department Spanish and Portuguese

 

Luisa Etxenike
Writer
"La sinceridad histórica/Historical Sincerity"

Larraitz Ariznabarreta
Center for Basque Studies, U Nevada, Reno
"On Politics, Violence, and Nuance"

Cristina Ortiz and Pilar Rodriguez
Chair of Humanistic Studies, U of Wisconsin, Green Bay
Department of Communication Studies, University of Deusto, San Sebastián
"Representing Violence: Female Basque Writers in the 21^st Century"

 

 

Basque Panel 2
Reconciliation, Coexistence, and its Avenues

2:45-4:00
041 Haldeman

Moderator: Annabel Martín
Department Spanish and Portuguese

 

Esther Pascual
Department of Criminology, Universidad Francisco de Vitoria, Madrid
"The Mediator's Perspective on Restorative Justice Encounters for Crimes of Terrorism"

Xabier Etxebarria
Universidad Complutense Law School, Madrid
"La recuperación del victimario - Recovering the Offender for Society"

Maixabel Lasa
Former Director of the Office of Victims of Terrorism Basque Government
Restorative Justice Participant
"Encuentros-Encounters"

Iñaki García Arrizabalaga
Deusto Business School, Bilbao and San Sebastián
Restorative Justice Participant
"Not Hating Means Giving Peace A Chance"

 

Special Guests

Atifete Jahjaga served as the fourth, and the first woman President of the Republic of Kosovo (2011-2016).  Jahjaga is Kosovo's first non-partisan candidate, the first female head of state in the modern Balkans, and the youngest female world leader to be elected to the highest office. Jahjaga constantly participates in national and international conferences and initiatives aimed at empowering women and supporting the survivors of sexual violence during the war. She continues to be resolute in her fight against violent extremism and radicalization and a staunch promoter of peace and stability for the Balkans and beyond. During her presidency, Jahjaga worked diligently to bring women to the forefront of Kosovo's political, economic, and social life as a means of ensuring a long-lasting democracy. In this context, in 2012 she hosted the International Women's Summit: "Partnership for Change—Empowering Women," which was attended by 200 leaders from Kosovo, the wider Europe, North America, Africa and the Middle East. The summit provided a venue for women from the region to cross ethnic barriers and come together to launch and promote a platform for their empowerment as women throughout the Balkans. The discussions led to the creation of the Pristina Principles which affirm the rights of women to political participation and representation, economic resources, and access to security and justice, and calls for actions to make these principles a reality. These principles were adopted as a resolution by the Kosovo Assembly. Jahjaga is a member of the Council of Women World Leaders since 2012 and is recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of Durham (2013), the Leadership in Public Service Award from the Clinton Global Initiative (2014), and the honorary degree of Doctor of Law from the University of Leicester (2015). In March of 2018, President Jahjaga established the Jahjaga Foundation- an initiative that focuses on the empowerment of youth and women towards achieving social change in Kosovo.

 

Dartmouth alum, and internationally distinguished photojournalist and war photographer, James Nachtwey, has dedicated his life to documenting the crises of our times. An American war photographer and photojournalist, Nachtwey was born in 1948. He was raised in Massachusetts and studied political science and art history at Dartmouth College, graduating in 1970. Nachtwey began working as a photographer for Albuquerque Journal in 1976 to then move to New York in 1980. He began working for Time in 1984, joined Magnum Photos in the mid-eighties, and since 2001 he was VII Photo Agency's naissance member until 2011.  Nachtwey has documented a range of disasters and armed conflict worldwide with special attention given to human suffering: from civil conflict in Northern Ireland (1980s), the Balkan wars (1993-94), famine in Sudan (1993), the 1994 elections in South Africa, genocidal wars in Rwanda (1995), the US invasion of Iraq (2003) where he suffered injury, the AIDS crisis in sub-Saharan Africa (2003), the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001, the Fukushima tsunami and nuclear devastation (2011), the Syrian refugee crisis (2014), to the recent Afghan collapse (2022), etc. Nachtwey's work has been displayed across the world and has received numerous awards and distinctions. He has received the Robert Capa Gold Medal from the Overseas Press Club five times from 1983 to 1998; the World Press Photo of the Year in 1993 and 1995; he holds an honorary fellowship of The Royal Photographic Society (1999); in 2006 he received the Heinz Award in Arts and Humanities from the Heinz Family Foundation; the Dan David Prize  in 2003 from the Dan David Foundation and Tel Aviv University (shared with Frederick Wiseman); one of three Ted Prizes in 2007; the Dresden Peace Prize in 2012; the 2016 Princess of Asturias of Spain Award for Communication and Humanities; and in 2019 he received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement. War Photographer (2001), a documentary by Christian Frei on James Nachtwey's life and work, was nominated for an Academy Award for best documentary film in 2001.

 

"One of the 25 Women Changing the World" —People. One of the "100 leading global thinkers" — Foreign Policy Magazine. "One of 100 "The Most Creative People in Business"—Fast Company. 

Zainab Salbi is an Iraqi-American humanitarian, bestselling author, TV Host and media commentator who founded Women for Women International at the age of 23. The organization has since helped over 478,000 marginalized women rebuild their lives in 8 conflict areas. While she was CEO, the organization distributed more than $100 million in direct aid and micro credit loans to these women that impacted more than 1.7 million family members. Zainab is the author of several books including the national bestseller Between Two Worlds: Escape from Tyranny: Growing Up in the Shadow of Saddam, and her latest, Freedom is an Inside Job: Owning Our Darkness and Our Light to Heal Ourselves and the World. Her TV shows include "Through Her Eyes with Zainab Salbi" on Yahoo! News, exploring contemporary issues from a female perspective and #MeToo, Now What? which broadcast nationally on PBS (2018). She is currently the editor at large at Women in the World in association with The New York Times and appears regularly as a commentator on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

 

Participants

Dr. Lisa V. Adams is the Associate Dean for Global Health, Director of The Center for Global Health Equity, and a Professor of Medicine in the Infectious Disease and International Health Section at Dartmouth. In all her roles, she develops and oversees cross-cutting global health programs and teaches global health courses to undergraduates and medical students. Her area of expertise is international tuberculosis care and prevention with a focus on pediatric TB and TB/HIV healthcare delivery. As a TB technical advisor, she has worked in over a dozen countries to provide technical assistance to Ministries of Health and nongovernmental partners. She led a tuberculosis control project in Kosovo for Doctors of the World, USA between 1994-97.

 

Txetxu Aguado is a Professor of Spanish in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and also teaches in the Programs of Comparative Literature and Women's, Gender, and Sexualities Studies at Dartmouth College.  His book, La tarea política: narrativa y ética en la España posmoderna (2004), focuses on the role the literary plays in the formulation of political and identitarian projects for Spanish civil society.  His second book, Tiempos de ausencias y vacíos: escrituras de memoria e identidad (2010), analyzes the Spanish political context and its multiple imaginings of statehood, cultural identity, and history.  His most recent book is entitled Sexualidades disidentes: un acercamiento filmográfico desde la prostitución y la pornografía (2019).  He has also published extensively on issues pertaining to Basque national identity and political violence.

 

Larraitz Ariznabarreta is an assistant professor at the Center for Basque Studies (University of Nevada, Reno) where she teaches courses related to Basque culture. Larraitz graduated and obtained her Doctorate at the University of Deusto, Bilbao. Before joining the Center for Basque Studies in 2019 she taught at Boise State University and at the University of Deusto. Her fields of research deal with the analysis of various expressions of Basque culture and their relation with power structures. Larraitz is the author of the books Martin Ugalde: Cartografías de un discurso (Ekin. Buenos Aires, 2015), Notes on Basque Culture: The Aftermath of Epics (CLAEH, Montevideo, 2019), and Memory and Emotion: (Basque) Women's Stories. Constructing Meaning from Memory (co-edited with Nere Lete) (CBS Press, 2022). Her last articles include: "Founding Fathers, Patrons, Mothers, and other Bertso-School Groupies". Oral Tradition. 35/1 (2021), p.p. 87-102.

 

Brikena Avdyli serves as the Executive Director of the Jahjaga Foundation since November 2019. She has a background in diversity and inclusion, with over eight years of experience working with international and local civil society organizations in projects related to the inclusion of women, youth, and persons with disabilities in political and electoral processes, as well as in the workplace. Prior to joining the Jahjaga Foundation, Brikena served in the Office of the President of Kosovo, as President Jahjaga's Adviser. Prior to this post, she worked at the International Foundation for Electoral Processes as a Project Officer for four years, managing projects related to the inclusion of marginalized groups and public outreach.  Brikena holds a master's degree in international development from American University in Washington D.C., and a Professionals Certificate in Diversity and Inclusion from Cornell University. She is a Kosovo American Education Fund Alumna and Transformational Leadership Program Alumna.

 

Anna di Lellio is a sociologist and policy analyst with a broad range of interests and experience, from American politics and culture to nationalism, security, and state building in the Balkans. Her research and publications focus on Kosovo, where she worked for years, as spokesperson for the United Nations World Food Program during the 1999 NATO intervention; Media Commissioner under the aegis of the Organization for the Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE); research analyst and advisor on the Kosovo Liberation Army program of reintegration for the International Organization for Migration and the United Nations Mission in Kosovo; and political adviser to the Prime Minister. She is also the co-founder of the Kosovo Oral History Initiative (KOHI) in cooperation with the Kosova Women's Network and she coordinates the project. KOHI is a multi- lingual and multi-media virtual archive of Kosovo history that is easily accessible to the public. It focuses on individual life stories that, since Kosovo's history has either been unrecorded or trapped in ideological narratives, provide the micro-knowledge that maps and demystifies the construction of mythologizing identities that support those narratives. In January 2015, KOHI was awarded a grant by the National Endowment for Democracy in support of the Initiative's work on strengthening inter-ethnic understanding and cooperation, as well as promoting human rights education. Professor Di Lellio teaches in New York at the Graduate Program in International Relations, The New School for Public Engagement, and at the International Relations Program of New York University. She is the editor of The Case for Kosova: Passage to Independence (Anthem, 2006), and the author of The Battle of Kosovo 1389: An Albanian Epic (I.B. Tauris, 2009). In 2015 she was awarded the Kosovo Presidential Medal of Merit by President Atifete Jahjaga for her contributions to the nation in the field of culture.

 

Prof. Daša Duhaček is a founder and a long-term director of the MA Program in Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Belgrade; a co-Director of the Feminist Critical Analysis course at the Inter-University Centre (IUC) in Dubrovnik, and a co-founder of the Center for Women's Studies in Belgrade. Her fields of research are political theory, feminist philosophy, and transitional justice.  Her publications include books (Burden of Our Times) and articles such as "Women's Time in Former Yugoslavia" in Gender Politics and Post-Communism, Routledge; "East European Feminist Philosophy" in Blackwell's Companion to Feminist Philosophy, etc.

 

Xabier Etxebarria is from Bilbao, Spain. He graduated at the Faculty of Law of the University of Deusto, in Bilbao, where he also obtained his PhD. He is currently a full-time professor of Criminal Law at the Faculty of Law at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. From 2005 to 2009 he was the Director of Criminal Measure Implementations of the Department of Justice of the Government of the Basque Country. From 2002 to 2005 and from 2009 to 2021 he has practiced criminal law and prison execution law. He was a visiting scholar at the University of San Diego in July and August 2019. He has published extensively on criminal law, prison implementation law, juvenile criminal law, terrorism, and restorative justice. One of his most renowned publications is "Manual de ejecución penitenciaria" (Handbook on Prison Implementation Rules), which reached ten editions. He is currently a researcher in a Project I+D+i PID2019-105778RB-I00 on Exclusión social y sistema penal y penitenciario: análisis y propuestas acerca de tres realidades (inmigración, refugio y enfermedad mental y prisión) [Social Exclusion, Criminal Justice, and Systems of Encarceration: Analysis and Recommendations on Three Realities: Inmigration, Refuge, and Mental Illness and Prison]. 

 

Luisa Etxenike was born in San Sebastian. She is the author of the novels Cruzar el agua, Aves del paraíso, Absoluta presencia, El detective de sonidos, El ángulo ciego (Euskadi Literary Award 2009), Los peces negros, Vino, El mal más grave, and Efectos secundarios; the plays La entrevista/The Interview, La herencia (Buero Vallejo Award 2017), and Gernika es ahora; the book of poetry El arte de la pesca; and several short-story collections. She is the director of the digital cultural platform Canal Europa and of the literary festival Un mundo de escritoras. In 2007 she was awarded the distinction of Chevalier de l' Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government. www.luisaetxenike.net

 

Iñaki García Arrizabalaga holds a PhD in Economic and Business Science. He is an Associate Professor and researcher at Deusto Business School (University of Deusto, San Sebastián, Spain). He is a recurring guest speaker on peace and coexistence for the official educational programs of the Basque and Navarre Governments aimed at secondary school and university students. His father was killed in 1980 by a terrorist group close to ETA.

 

 

 

 

 

Dr Sabiha Husić is a psychotherapist and interreligious peacebuilder, and the director of NGO Medica Zenica in Bosnia-Herzegovina (B&H). Husić obtained a PhD Degree in Gender Studies at the University of Sarajevo, and her doctoral thesis was on "Criticism and Transformation of Social Support Models for Survivors of War-Time Sexual Violence in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Feminist and Cultural Perspectives". She has been working as a psychotherapist for 27 years directly with survivors of war and post-war gender-based violence. In addition, Sabiha Husić initiated, developed methodology, and was the first to established in B&H and in the region institutional networks for support to survivors and survivors' witnesses of war crimes, sexual violence, and other criminal offenses. She is an author and co-author of many publications on the topic of psychosocial work with survivors and she initiated and participated in developing and adopting many policies and laws in B&H in the field of social protection, gender-based violence, gender equality, and human rights protection. Sabiha has received many awards for her engagement, commitment and dedicated work, such as the international awards: Woman of the World Award (2014), a Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice Women Peacemaker (2013), Active Citizens of Europe Award, by Volonteurope (2009) and these awards in Bosnia and Herzegovina: "Nagrada Zenice" – The City of Zenica Award (2016), "Snaga Žene" Award  by the Association of Women Entrepreneurs of B&H  (2015), and  Recognition by citizens of B&H as one of its 11 women peacemakers (2012).

 

Dr. Remzje Istrefi is a Judge at the Constitutional Court of Kosovo and Associated Professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Prishtina. She holds a L.L.M from University of Notre Dame, S.B, USA, Law School, and a PhD where she researched: "The Responsibility of International Organizations for Human Rights Violation – the Kosovo Case".  In 2008, Remzije Istrefi was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship at Duke University, North Carolina (USA). She is a Hague Academy for International Law Alumna and currently she is an Honorary Fellow at the Law School and Social Justice, Liverpool University, UK.  From 2014, Remzije Istrefi has conducted research in the field of transitional justice (post-doctoral studies) at the International Law Institute of the University "Karl Frances Universitat" in Graz, Austria. In February 2018, Remzije Istrefi established the "Center for Transitional Justice" within the University of Pristina. Currently she is researching in the field of constitutionalism and transitional justice.

 

Lucas Joshi is a graduating student at Dartmouth College (Hanover, United States) with a double major in Spanish and Portuguese literature. He is the co-founder and co-editor in chief of the cultural mag-azine, Dear Dartmouth-An Undergraduate Publication, founder and president of the anti-colonialist book club, Chapter Two, and founder of the bilingual program, Read Conmigo, of Howe Library (Hanover, New Hampshire). He is a recipient of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship and is currently working on the research and writing of the thesis entitled "Unmaking Utopia: Paving the Road of Reconciliation within the Basque Context". He intends to pursue postgraduate study on the topic of Luso-Indian literature and culture.

 

Rachel Kent graduated from Dartmouth College in 2021, where she studied Human Geography, Environmental Studies, and Hispanic Studies. At Dartmouth, she was awarded Salutatorian, Stamps Scholar, Class Marshal, Dartmouth Legacy Award, Phi Beta Kappa, and the Rachel Carson Award in the Geography Department. Rachel's academic pursuits are grounded in the imperative to feed ourselves in a way that nourishes rather than destroys our communities and environment. For her senior honors thesis, she conducted ethnographic research on creating social relations that care for both human and non-human lives through farming practices, particularly as a counter to the destructive tendencies of capitalist agriculture. Rachel also practices her passion for sustainable, just food systems through her work with several New England farms and food access initiatives. In September 2021, she began a Master of Gastronomy: World Food Cultures and Mobility at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, Italy as a recipient of a Ful-bright Scholarship.

 

Dr. Vjollca Krasniqi is a sociologist. She is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Philosophy, and Faculty of Arts, University of Prishtina. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Ljubljana, an M.Sc. degree in Gender, Development, and Globalization from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and a BA degree in Philosophy and Sociology from the University of Prishtina. Her research interests are gender, nation-building, human rights, post-war justice, and social policy. She has led and participated in numerous international research projects and published widely on these issues. Her recent publications include: "Are we putting human rights into practice in Kosovo?" (co-author with Jane McPherson and Tatiana Villarreal-Otalora 2021); "Skirts and Words: The Art of Acknowledgment, War-Time Rape, and Albanian Nationhood in Kosovo" (co-author with Ivor Sokolić and Denisa Kostovicova 2020); "Domestic Violence: Gendered State Rationality and Women's Activism in Kosovo" (2019); "Migration and Human Rights in Kosovo: Perspectives for Social Work Education" (2019). She is co-founder of the University Program for Gender Studies and Research (2013-). She has worked on numerous projects on gender issues and she been active in the women's movement in the Balkans.

 

Maixabel Lasa Iturrioz was born in 1951 and is retired. She has a daughter and three grandchildren. Maixabel was the former director of the Office for Victims of Terrorism under the Basque Government from 2001-2012. She sponsored and participated in several peace and reconciliation projects from her leadership position, particularly, the Glen-cree project, the victim-teacher education project, and the restorative justice project. In her case, she met with two of the individuals that assassinated her husband, Juan María Jauregi in 2000, one of whom is the protagonist together with Maixabel of the documentary Zubiak (Bridges) by Jon Sistiaga (2019). In fall 2021 the film Maixabel, directed by Iciar Bollaín, on her life and civic engagement, was released and received high critical acclaim, and three Goya Awards in February 2022. Maixabel has been and is a powerful advocate for peace and coexistence.

 

Annabel Martín is an Associate Professor of Spanish, Comparative Literature, and Women's Gender, and Sexualities Studies at Dartmouth College (USA) and was the founding director of the Gender Research Institute (GRID) at that institution. She has published extensively on nationalism, gender, historical memory, Basque terrorist violence, reconciliation, as well as on film, gender and tourism in 1960s desarrollista Spain, and on the importance of the humanities and gender studies in educational curricula.  Her most recent books include Tras las huellas del terrorismo en Euskadi: Justicia restaurativa, conviviencia y reconciliacion (2019) coedited and written with Pilar Rodríguez and the bilingual edition of Transatlantic Letters: An Epistolary Exchange Between Basque and US Students on Violence and Community (2022), also coedited with Pilar Rodríguez. In 2019 she held the Bernardo Atxaga Chair of Basque Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York (Instituto Etxepare-Gobierno Vasco). Annabel is a member of several international research teams on gender, an advisory board member of the EU Horizon 2020 project "GEARING Roles" on gender equality, and the chair of the advisory board of ARES (Anti-Feminist Resistance, Spain).

 

Unai Murua is double majoring in Law and Communication Studies at the University of Deusto, San Sebastian (Spain). Since he was a child, the Basque conflict has had a strong presence in his life, thus making one of the darkest moments of Basque history an object of intense scrutiny for him. He has attended many conferences and events on ETA, peace, and processes of reconciliation. This has made him a firm believer in the responsibility that his generation holds in receiving and furthering the legacy that others have strived to establish before them. His participation in this book symbolizes his first contribution, a small steppingstone on the route towards a better and more just Euskadi.

 

Vlora Tuzi Nushi is the UN Women Programme Specialist/Head of Office in Kosovo.  With more than 22 years of experience with international organizations, she has been working for UN Women/UNIFEM for the past 18 years. Vlora was born in Gjakove, Kosovo where she also completed her masters' studies in Pharmacy. She speaks English, Albanian, Serbo-Croatian. During all these years, Vlora has been a driving force behind UN Women initiatives and some of its biggest achievements. She has been influential in transforming conversations on some of the most important issues affecting the lives of women and girls in Kosovo. Vlora is deeply committed to protecting women's rights and further enhancing women's empowerment. As a passionate activist and gender equality advocate, she is fully engaged to intercept and help make gender equality the new normal for all communities in Kosovo through innovative approaches targeting this goal.

 

Cristina Ortiz-Ceberio was born in San Sebastián/Donostia (Spain). She has a bachelor's degree in Humanities obtained at the University of the Basque Country and a PhD in Romance Languages and Literatures from the University of Cincinnati (Ohio, USA). Currently she is the Chair of the Department of Humanistic Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, where she teaches interdisciplinary courses on contemporary culture, on Spanish language and on literatures written in Spanish. Her most recent publications include Ellas Cuentan: Representaciones artísticas de la violencia en el País Vasco desde la perspectiva de género (Madrid: Dykinson, 2020), co-authored with Prof. María Pilar Rodríguez from the University of the Deusto and translated into English as Affective Landscapes: Representations of Terrorism and Violence by Basque Female Authors (New York, London: Peter Lang, 2021). She is the author of numerous articles on literature and cinema from the Spanish-speaking world from the optics of genre. She is currently an Advisory Board Member for ARES (Anti-feminist Resistance, Spain).

 

Esther Pascual Rodríguez is the undergraduate director of the degree in Criminology at the University Francisco de Vitoria (Madrid). She joined higher education six years ago and makes it compatible with her law practice (started in 2001) and with her work in mediation (ongoing since 2005) in coordination with the Association for Mediation and Peace-Making of Madrid. This association pioneered programs for penitentiary and penal mediation, designing pilot programs that have become widespread in Spain. She is the author of various publications on sentencing and restorative justice. One especially important book of hers on this topic is Los ojos del otro. Los encuentros restaurativos entre víctimas y ex miembros de ETA (2013), a book that narrates the overwhelmingly powerful, humane, and transformative experience that those particular encounters embody from the theoretical perspective of the facilitator. Esther Pascual participated in the restorative justice encounters between victims and former members of ETA as a mediator and as the coordinator of the project when other facilitators joined the team, as well as being the author of the intervention protocols that were put in place. She holds a Ph.D. from the Universidad Complutense (Madrid) (2012) with a thesis on mediation entitled: La mediación en el sistema penal: Propuestas para un modelo reparador, humano y garantista. Esther also trains mediators and considers herself to be a life-long apprentice.

 

María Pilar Rodríguez is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Deusto (Spain) and Director of the Ph.D. program in Leisure, Culture and Communication for Human Development. She holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University and until 2002 she taught at Columbia University (New York, USA). María Pilar has extensively published on literature, film, culture, and gender studies. She is the Principal Investigator of the Communication research team at her university and recognized by the Basque Government. Her last two books are Affective Landscapes: Representations of Terrorism and Violence by Basque Female Authors (New York: Peter Lang, 2021, co-writ-ten with Cristina Ortiz) and Basque Cinema: A Cultural and Political His-tory (London: IB Tauris, 2015, co-written with Rob Stone).

 

Mirlinda Sada is the Executive Director of NGO MEDICA GJAKOVA in Kosovo, with the aim to improve the well-being of survivors of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) during the war in Kosovo and its aftermath, to strengthening their security, and support their integration into all aspects of public life. Mirlinda studied at the University of Prishtina, Faculty of Economics.  She also held a USAID funded fellowship in Washington DC, researching the role of civil society. Mirlinda also has finished European Integration School and is a member of several professional bodies and one of the founders of the Rotary Club Gjakova-Jakova. Starting in 1999, she worked in the civil society sector, and during these 22 years of work experience in this sector she demonstrated interpersonal and communication skills, strong initiatives, exceptional organizational skills, and the ability to work well under pressure, qualities that allowed her to play a crucial role in empowering women and girls and strengthening the role of civil society in Gjakove/ Kosove. She is born in Gjakova, currently resides in Gjakova with her family. She can be contacted at linda.sada@gmail.com  or reached by phone at +377 44 996655.