My research, Gendered Justice and the Politics of Memory: Rethinking Transitional Justice in Nepal and Lessons from Rwanda, explores how women’s lived experiences of loss, silence, widowhood, and resistance, redefine justice in post-conflict societies.

Through a comparative analysis of Nepal’s stalled transitional justice process and Rwanda’s post-genocide framework, this study argues that justice must extend beyond legal institutions to include remembrance, livelihood, and dignity. Drawing on feminist theory, ethnographic studies, and policy reports, it highlights how victims, especially women, transform grief into activism through local memorialization and community-led initiatives.

This project, supported by the Laidlaw Research and Leadership scholarship has deepened my belief that true reconciliation being not in tribunals but in the courage of survivors who continue to remember and rebuild when the state fails to act.  

I hope to expand this research in the future through ethnographic and on-the-ground archival work that centers survivors’ voices and lived realities more deeply, and to develop a stronger understanding of and contribution to the study of transitional justice.