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
The past decades have shown an increase in ad hoc international law institutions, yet the afterlife of tribunals remains relatively unknown. This entry by Niké Wentholt and Siri Driessen explores how the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, as a site of cultural heritage with layered narratives, can be transformed…
Lees verder‘Unburden us and them’: encountering ‘the other’ in meetings between Bosnian genocide survivors and Dutch UN veterans
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 identify which conditions need to be met to make them meaningful for the participants.
Lees verderMEDIA
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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