Dr Rebekka Friedman is a Reader (Associate Professor) in International Relations. Her research and teaching focus on peacebuilding, transitional justice, reintegration, the study of violence and conflict, gender, memory, healing, and trauma. She has carried out research in Sri Lanka, Peru, Sierra Leone, and Colombia.

Rebekka has a PhD and MA in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a BA Joint Honours in Political Science and International Development from McGill University. She is a previous editor of Millennium: Journal of International Studies. From 2018-2019, Rebekka was a fellow of the Policy Institute (KCL). She was a visiting fellow at the Fletcher School at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts in 2018.

Teaching

• Transitional Justice and International Criminal Law (7SSWM223)
• Gendering Global Politics (6SSW3033)
• Conflict, Security and Development (7SSWM140)

PhD supervision

She is currently supervising PhD students working on the following areas:

• Popular acceptance of the Colombian peace process
• Women cadres in the Khmer Rouge
• Post-conflict education and transitional justice in Sri Lanka

Research Interests

• Legacies of violence
• Transitional justice
• International law
• Gender justice
• Peacebuilding
• Reconciliation
• Feminist peace research
• Memory and trauma

Research

Rebekka’s most recent work focuses on broadening conceptions of harm in transitional justice and International Relations. She is a co-investigator of the UKRI GCRF Gender, Justice and Security Hub and is leading the ‘Legacies of the Disappeared’ project within the Hub. She co-led the Hub’s ‘Innovative Methodologies’ steering group.

Rebekka was the PI of an ESRC Future Research project, Hidden Voices: Lived Experiences in the Face of Militarization and Protracted Social Conflict (2016-2018), which examined gendered experiences of marginalization and recovery in Sri Lanka and Colombia. She has an interest in ethnographic and visual methods and made a documentary film as part of the project in Sri Lanka.

Rebekka’s broader research focuses on the impact of transitional justice and peacebuilding and the extent to which they address root causes of conflict. She is particularly interested in gendered and less visible legacies of violence, healing, and peacebuilding in conflict-affected areas.

Selected Publications

• 'A Lens into the Everyday: Visual Ethnographies and Making a Multistoried Film in Sri Lanka'. European Journal of International Relations (October 27, 2024). https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13540661241280957.
• ‘Violations of the Heart: Parental Harm in War and Oppression’, with Hanna Ketola, Review of International Studies (October 2023), pp. 1-20. doi:10.1017/S0260210523000499.
• ‘Afterword: Reflexive Encounters When Speaking Across Bounded Knowledges’, in Emma McCluskey and Constadina Charalambous, (eds) Security, Ethnography, Discourse: Transdisciplinary Encounters (London: Routledge, 2022), pp. 199-202. ISBN 9780367532031.
• ‘Securing the Peace and Promoting Human Rights in Post-Accord Colombia’, with Nelson Camillo Sánchez and Eric Wiebelhaus-Brahm, in James Meernik, Jacqueline DeMerritt and Mauricio Uribe-Lopez (eds) As War Ends: What Colombia Can Tell Us about the Sustainability of Peace and Transitional Justice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), pp. 305-324. ISBN:
• ‘Hidden and Heard: Protesting Disappearances in Sri Lanka’, with Hannah Partis-Jennings, King’s College London Policy Institute (2019), pp. 1-24.
• ‘Remnants of a Chequered Past: Female Combatants and the Renegotiation of Agency in Northern Sri Lanka’, International Studies Quarterly, 62:3 (2018), pp. 632-642. Online ISSN: 1468-2478.
• ‘Implementing Transformative Justice: Survivors and Ex-Combatants at the Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación in Peru’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 41:4 (2018), pp. 701-720. doi:1080/01419870.2017.1330487.
• Competing Memories: Truth and Reconciliation in Sierra Leone and Peru (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017). ISBN:
• ‘Transitional Justice, Popular Participation and Civil Society’, in Bhavani Fonsenka (ed) Transitional Justice in Sri Lanka: Key Issues (Colombo, Sri Lanka: Centre for Policy Alternatives, 2017), pp. 450-474. ISBN: 9789554746824.
• Evaluating Transitional Justice: Accountability and Peacebuilding in Post-Conflict Sierra Leone, Kirsten Ainley, Rebekka Friedman and Chris Mahony (eds) (London: Palgrave, 2015). ISBN:
• ‘Culturally-Mediated Grieving: Women’s Experiences in Northern Sri Lanka’, in ‘Bridging Theory and Practice: Gender and Transitional Justice’ Special Issue, Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security Occasional Paper Series (2016), pp. 20-37.
• ‘Restorative Justice: Promises and Limitations’, in Kirsten Ainley, Rebekka Friedman and Chris Mahony (eds) Evaluating Transitional Justice: Accountability and Peacebuilding in Post-Conflict Sierra Leone (London: Palgrave, 2015), pp. 55-76. ISBN:
• ‘The Pitfalls and Politics of Holistic Justice’, with Andrew Jillions, Global Policy 6:2 (2015), pp. 141-150. ISSN:1758-5880.
• ‘Ten Years On: Transitional Justice in Post-Conflict Sierra Leone’, with Kirsten Ainley, Simone Datzberger and Chris Mahony, Conference Report, Goodenough College, London (2013), pp. 1-43.
• After Liberalism? The Future of Liberalism in International Relations, Rebekka Friedman, Kevork Oskanian and Ramon Pacheco-Pardo (eds) (London: Palgrave, 2013). ISBN:

Please visit the Research Portal for a list of publications.