Siri Driessen is an assistant professor in Historical Memory and Moral Imagination at the University of Humanistic Studies. My work focuses on war and memory studies, war heritage, and arts.
DIALOGICS OF JUSTICE
How do contemporary societies and individuals deal with the remnants of violent and military pasts? As a scholar working at the intersection of Social Sciences and Humanities, I study what activities people engage in to do justice to memories of war and violence. Such memories are often studied from either an individual psychological point of view or from a general societal perspective. However, this approach ignores what happens in between individuals and society. By researching encounters between different groups of people associated with war and conflict, I aim to understand which activities result in a mutual recognition of wartime experiences.
I am currently involved in several research projects, focusing on the experiences of women genocide survivors in Bosnia, on multivoicedness, and on the legacy of archives. Previously, as a postdoctoral researcher, I was involved in Back with a Mission: an interdisciplinary research project that studied how return trips to mission areas help war veterans, their spouses, and Bosnian citizens assign meaning to their wartime experiences. The project is carried out by the University of Humanistic Studies (Nicole Immler, Siri Driessen); the Leiden University Medical Centre (Eric Vermetten); Humanistic Chaplaincy (Jeannette van Brenk), and the Dutch Veterans Institute. Back with a Mission was associated with the Dialogics of Justice research project carried out by the University of Humanistic Studies.
My PhD ‘Touching War. An Ethnographic Analysis of War Tourism in Europe’ studied how different groups of people encountered remnants of war and violence by means of ‘touristic’ visits to heritage sites. By zooming in on the tensions between tourism and commemoration, the dissertation aims to add new perspectives to a debate in which war tourism is either morally condemned or spectacularized.
I obtained my PhD from Erasmus University Rotterdam (2020). I received an MA in Cultural Analysis (University of Amsterdam), a BA in History (University of Amsterdam), and a BA in Fine Arts (ArtEZ Arnhem).
Contact: siri.driessen@uvh.nl
PUBLICATIONS
Exploring the ICTY as Cultural Heritage
Siri Driessen & Niké Wentholt
July 18, 2025 | The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Cultural Heritage and Conflict
This entry by Niké Wentholt and Siri Driessen explores how the ICTY in The Hague, as a site of cultural heritage with layered narratives, can be transformed into a place of multidirectional memory.
Read more‘Unburden us and them’: encountering ‘the other’ in meetings between Bosnian genocide survivors and Dutch UN veterans
Siri Driessen, Jeannette van Brenk, Nicole Immler & Eric Vermetten
March 28, 2025 | Frontiers in Sociology, Medical Sociology
The Dutch government has offered Dutchbat 3 veterans and their partners to return to Srebrenica and meet with women survivors of war and genocide. Siri Driessen, Jeannette van Brenk, Nicole Immler and Eric Vermetten aim to…
Read moreMEDIA
Call on Dutch institutions for higher education to speak out on (de)humanization in the face of the violence in Palestine and Israël
27/10/2023 ‘Hamas-Israël conflict moet studenten leren niemand te ontmenselijken’ – Trouw
‘Wees niet bang om ‘partij te kiezen’ gericht op humanisering’ – Nieuw Wij
In this opinion piece Siri Driessen, Nicole Immler, Obiozo Ukpabi and Niké Wentholt called on Dutch institutions for higher education to take a stand against dehumanization in the face of terrorist…
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EVENTS
15-17/4/2026 – Dialogics of Justice Final Conference
April 15th-17th 2026 Dialogics of Justice (NWO-VICI) – Final Conference About the conference The last decade has witnessed an increase in civil proceedings brought before Dutch district courts by people adversely affected by colonial violence, military missions, sexual abuse, and environmental harm. Does legal action against institutions such as the Dutch state, the military, the church, and…
Read more4/2/2026 – Relationality seminar
Relational approaches have become increasingly prominent in the social sciences and humanities, resulting in the so-called ‘relational turn’ (Dépelteau 2013). Rather than focusing on isolated actors or events, such approaches seek to understand phenomena through their relations: between people, practices, institutions, histories, and systems of power. But what does it mean to work relationally in research? Dialogics…
Read more23/1/2026 – Meeting RNW Oral History – The Multivoiced Archive: (How) Can We Make Oral History Archives Reparatory?
On Friday 23 January, the Oral History Network of the Huizinga Institute hosted an inspiring gathering at University Utrecht that brought together practices and reflections from Oral History, Transitional Justice, and Memory Studies around our project: The Multivoiced Archive. During the session we – Nicole Immler, Siri Driessen, Leah Niederhausen and Rosa Mul – presented our Multivoiced Archive project,…
Read more3-4/6/2025 – Workshop ‘Reimagining victims’ reparation: building new perspectives on empathy, dignity, and justice for victims of serious human rights violations in the Global South’
As part of the consortium Reimagining Victims Reparation, Nicole Immler and Siri Driessen attend this third international workshop which brings together scholars, practitioners, and activists to rethink reparations for victims of serious human rights violations. Moving beyond traditional, legalistic approaches, the event centers victims’ own perspectives, needs, and initiatives. With a focus on the Global…
Read more5/3/2025 – ECHO: Lezingenavond Bearing Witness
On Wednesday, March 5th, Platform POST organized the lecturenight ‘ECHO’ in the midst of the exhibition Bearing Witness at POST, Arnhem. This exhibition brings together works by artists from (post-)conflict areas with stories from veterans and their moral doubts about participating in various UN missions. Together, they show how events that may be historically defined still…
Read more10/12/2024 – Human Library: Doe mee met meer meerstemmigheid!
On December 10, 2024 we organized this event together with Disability Studies in Nederland at the University of Humanistic Studies. The Human Library offers a platform for people to share their unique, multivoiced stories about issues of injustice, recognition, and repair. The event took place on Human Rights Day. One week prior was the International Day…
Read more02-03/05/2024 – Reimagining Victims’ Reparation Global Network (RVRGN): “Reimagining reparation as social repair. A Dialogics of Justice perspective.”
Nicole, Siri and Niké participated in the second workshop of a newly established network on re-imagining victims’ reparations. Sandra Rios Oyola invited this group of international scholars to come together in a beautiful medieval hall at University College Roosevelt. Over two days, discussing multiple cases and theoretical frames, we exchanged ideas on how reparations can…
Read more30/09/2022 – Expert meeting: celebrating the mid-point of our project
The Dialogics of Justice-team marked the mid-point in their project with an expert meeting. For this closed event, we invited partners from academia and practice, who we see as close collaborators in our research. We invited their feedback and discussion on our research design and first findings. This resulted in insightful reflections on what we…
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