Profile picture for user billi3ke@jmu.edu

Krista Billingsley

Assistant Professor of Justice Studies, James Madison University

Connect with Krista

About Krista

Billingsley's research focuses on transitional justice; human rights; displacement; the missing due to war and migration; and children/youth. Overarching themes in Billingsley's writings include structural violence; political violence; building collaborations; victim-centric justice; and activism. Billingsley has worked with conflict victims' organizations in Nepal and serves as an expert witness in U.S. asylum cases. 

Publications

"Critical Conversations about Transitional Justice in Nepal: Building Collaborations for Victim-Centric Practice" Practicing Anthropology 40, no. 2 (2018): 19-23.

Focuses on the families of people who were forcibly disappeared during Nepal's decade-long internal armed conflict and their continued exclusion from processes of transitional justice. Highlights continued conversations with victim-activists after Billingsley's return to the United States from Nepal. Questions what kinds of collaborations are possible to facilitate inclusion and social justice for marginalized victims.

"Intersectionality as Locality: Children and Transitional Justice in Nepal" International Journal of Transitional Justice 12, no. 1 (2018): 64-87.

Examines the perceptions and experiences of adults who were children when their fathers were killed or disappeared during the decade-long internal armed conflict between the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoists and the Nepali government, based on 14 months of ethnographic research in Nepal. Challenges homogeneous and fixed conceptualizations of 'children' and 'the local' and argues for greater attention to the intersectional experiences of victims and the redress of entrenched systems of domination and inequality.

"Conflict over Transitional Justice in Nepal" Anthropology News (2016).

Examines demonstrations held by conflict victims in Kathmandu, Nepal who continue to advocate for redress of conflict-era human rights violations nearly a decade after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

"Introduction to the Special Issue on Building Collaborations through Anthropological Research on the Missing" Practicing Anthropology 40, no. 2 (2018): 2-5.

Introduces the special issue on building collaborations through anthropological research on the missing due to war and migration. Aims to create accessible dialogues about rapidly communicating research findings and building collaborations with the families of the missing.