This seminar will be a hybrid event where the speaker will be presenting in-person and the talk will be streamed via zoom. Those who want to attend physically are more than welcome to join us in meeting room 929 at Eilert Sundt’s building.
Abstract
Scholars have only recently begun to link transitional justice frameworks to the legal settlements after terror. In recent years, Norway has experienced a series of mass violence events. 22 July 2011, a right-wing terrorist bombed the government quarter killing eight and massacring 69 people at Utøya island. In 2019, attempting to emulate the 22 July perpetrator, a right-wing extremist attacked a mosque outside Oslo. In 2021, inhabitants of the rural town of Kongsberg were murdered in their homes. In 2022, an Islamist attack was carried out against people celebrating Oslo PRIDE week. For all perpetrators, issues about mental sanity have been central to deliberations around punishment. Understanding the legal ripple effects of terror through the lens of transitional justice, this socio-legal article interrogates the linkage between legal accountability, the format of a trial, and the political, cultural, and emotional requirements for someone to ‘hold’ criminal responsibility. The central contribution of this article is to problematize the rise of the shapeshifting perpetrator – the ability of an imaginary person or creature to change form, shape, or identity – and what this means for terrorism trials. While Christie suggested that ‘ideal victims need – and create – ideal offenders’, these examples are indicative of a trend whereby the perpetrator is shapeshifting and acts of terrorism and mass violence translate into mental healthcare and patient status rather than criminal accountability. In the context of transitional justice, this requires us to revisit assumptions on how trials can contribute to justice and public healing. The article explores trials as ‘ordinary criminal law politics’, tradeoffs around difficult trials and ‘non-trials, and considers possible pivots towards restorative justice.
Biography
Sandvik’s socio-legal research agenda focuses on regulation and legal mobilization in the context of the digital transformation, gender-based violence, humanitarian emergencies and terror. She is particularly interested in the relationship between ethics, rights, and social justice. Sandvik holds law degrees from the University of Oslo and Harvard Law School. She has previously studied anthropology at SAI and Harvard University. Sandvik has also organized and taught Legal Anthropology at the Faculty of Law.
In 2011, Sandvik co-founded the Norwegian Center for Humanitarian Studies (NCHS), where she was the director from 2012 to 2016. Her work has appeared in Law and Society Review; PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review; The International Journal of Transitional Justice; Norsk Antropologisk Tidsskrift; and The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, among other. In 2023 she published Humanitarian extractivism: The digital transformation of aid (Manchester University Press).
Central to her academic practice is the objective of contributing to critical societal dialogue around governance, legality, and accountability in crisis situations, involving scholars, communities, practitioners, and policymakers. Sandvik has been the project leader of seven projects financed by the Research Council of Norway. Currently this includes LAW22JULY: RIPPLES: Rights, Institutions, Procedures, Participation, Litigation: Embedding Security (SAMRISK) and Legal regulation in an era of deglobalization: socio-legal perspectives on technology, migration, democracy, and war (with Peter Scharff Smith).