Transitional Justice Without Transition by Güneş Daşlı

Transitional Justice Without Transition by Güneş Daşlı

How can transitional justice take root where there is no transition? This book confronts this central tension by examining the Kurdish conflict in Turkey — a context where the absence of a transitional moment has not prevented grassroots actors from building a justice process of their own. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, it maps the transitional justice ecosystem in Turkey: the actors who sustain it, the demands they articulate, the strategies they pursue, and the networks they forge under conditions of ongoing conflict and authoritarian regime.

Rather than treating transitional justice as something imposed from above, the book situates civil society as its driving force, contributing to a broader rethinking of the field. Its conceptual contribution lies in the application of relationality as an analytical lens, drawing on feminist moral philosophy and relational sociology to unpack complex victim agency. The book offers empirical and theoretical tools for scholars and practitioners studying justice struggles in contexts that resist easy categorisation.

Güneş Daşlı is a Cara research fellow in the Department of International Relations, Politics, and History at Loughborough University. Her recent research focuses on diaspora efforts for the transitional justice process in Syria. She teaches on transitional justice, conflict, gender and peace, critical security studies, and Middle East politics.