Out now: JPR Issue 8.2!

We are pleased to announce the publication of a new special issue of Journal of Perpetrator Research, emerging from the conference “Reflections on the Boundaries of Perpetrator Studies: Looking at Violence, Politics, and Harm” (26–27 June 2024, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium).

The conference was organized by Dr Margaux Coquet (Université de Luxembourg), Dr Marie-Sophie Devresse (Université de Louvain), Prof. Damien Scalia (Université Libre de Bruxelles), and Dr Ellen Van Damme (Université Libre de Bruxelles), who also serve as guest editors of this special issue.

Bringing together scholars from multiple disciplines, the conference explored key theoretical and methodological questions in perpetrator studies. Central themes included the ethical implications of the researcher’s position in analyzing perpetrators and perpetration, the ways in which such positions differ across disciplinary contexts, and the challenges these differences pose for collaboration. Participants reflected on the boundaries of perpetrator studies as a field, engaged with topics not traditionally foregrounded, and opened up directions for future research.

The special issue features an introduction by the guest editors and four research articles that span diverse historical and geographical contexts. These contributions examine British colonial violence in Tibet at the turn of the twentieth century; immigration detention regimes in contemporary Europe; the contested perpetrator–victim binary in Argentine transitional justice; and the emergence of digital violence alongside the conceptual challenge of ‘digital perpetrators’.

The articles included in this issue are:

Yukti Saumya, “Conquering Lands, Collecting Bodies: Perpetrators’ Perspectives on the Younghusband Mission”

Lorenzo Bernardini, “Mass Immigration Detention: Thorny Pathologies and Large-Scale Impact”

Timothy Williams, “Perpetrators 2.0: Rethinking Violence and Violent Actors in the Digital Era?”

Michael Humphrey and Estela Valverde, “The Categories of Perpetrator and Victim in Transitional Justice: An Analysis of the Argentinian Dictatorship as a ‘Restless Event’”

Taken together, these contributions underscore the need to deepen the field’s engagement with structural and institutional forms of perpetration—forms of harm generated through the routine operation of legal, bureaucratic, and technological systems. They highlight the importance of attending to the temporal dimensions of perpetration, emphasizing how categories such as ‘perpetrator’ and ‘victim’ remain contested and are reshaped over time through ongoing political and mnemonic struggles. And they call for sustained engagement with emerging forms of violence, including those mediated by digital technologies, which challenge existing analytical frameworks and demand new conceptual tools.

The full issue is available open access here.