Victim Agency, Relational Autonomy and Transitional Justice: Experience of Saturday Mothers

ABSTRACT∞ This article explores the political agency of victims and proposes a new concept for understanding complex political victims in violent political contexts. To do so, it first challenges the problematic dichotomy of victim-perpetrator identities in transitional justice, drawing on interdisciplinary studies of agency, victim mobilization and the phenomenon of enforced disappearance. I (re)conceptualize victims’ agency by applying the concept of ‘relational autonomy’ which considers the role of social relations in the agency-building process and highlights relational values that are under-appreciated in the liberal concept of agency. I examine the case of the Saturday Mothers, a victim movement in Turkey, to show how their agency has been re-established through their interaction within this social network, and how this shapes the sense of justice they imagine and practice in this social space.