Grant to help criminologist memorialize Nepal victims

Krista Billingsley receives Wenner-Gren Foundation Engaged Anthropology Grant to fund her work

November 9, 2020
Faculty/staff report

Professor Krista BillingsleyKrista Billingsley, director of criminology and assistant professor of anthropology and criminology at Saint Michael’s College, learned recently she has received a Wenner-Gren Foundation Engaged Anthropology Grant to conduct research virtually with families of the disappeared in Nepal on a digital media project titled “Memorialization and Victim-Led Truth-Telling after Nepal’s Armed Conflict.”

“Through this virtual engaged project, victims will tell their stories as a way to memorialize their loved ones who remain missing more than a decade after the cessation of Nepal’s armed conflict,” Billingsley said. “This project foregrounds the voices of victims and creates knowledge on their terms through a virtual memory project where they represent themselves.”

Nepal march front

This image shows vctims who gather annually on August 30 to advocate for their disappeared loved ones. More people were forcibly disappeared in Bardiya District than any other district during the armed conflict in Nepal.

She said that through this commemoration project, “knowledge will be produced for the empowerment of victims, families, and communities. Many conflict victims are illiterate due to their continued exclusion from formal education. A digital media project is therefore especially useful, because it facilitates their participation in a public memory project that is more accessible than a written report.”

This engaged project builds on Billingsley’s Fulbright-Hays and Wenner-Gren Foundation-funded dissertation research and current book project on children and transitional justice in Nepal. The research will be conducted virtually January 2021-April 2021.

marchers Katmandu

This image shows conflict victims gathering on International Right to Truth Day in Kathmandu, Nepal.

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