Victimhood plays a central role in shaping individual and collective responses to trauma, influencing identity, intergroup relations, and political behavior. While victim narratives can support recognition and justice, they are increasingly instrumentalized to justify claims, mobilize conflict, and fuel polarization. This pre-conference brings together interdisciplinary perspectives to examine how victimhood is constructed, mobilized, and challenged across social, political, and historical contexts. 

Preconference Format

The preconference will be organized around 3 thematic clusters and a keynote talk. It opens at 9am with a short introduction and then the keynote talk by Dr Emily Kubin from the University of Oxford, titled "The Paradox of Victimhood: A Driver and Healer of Divisive Conflict". 

The first thematic cluster consists of 5 talks and is titled "From Grievance to Violence: Psychological Pathways of Radicalization and Conflict". 

The second thematic cluster consists of 5 talks and it titled "Claiming Harm: Victimhood Narratives in Political Communication and Online Spaces". 

Finally, the third thematic cluster consists of 5 talks again and is titled "After the Violence: Memory, Responsibility, and the Politics of the Past". 

Thematic clustering provides a structured yet integrative framework that connects psychological processes, political communication, and post-conflict memory, fostering dialogue across disciplines and stages of violence. For each talk there will be an up to 15 mins time for presentations and up to 5 mins time for discussion for each presentation and a short up to 5 mins general discussion-reflections at the end of each thematic cluster by the co-organizing team. 

The last session 17:00-17:30 will be focused on general reflections and fostering future collaborations.

The preconference will end at 17:30.

Organizers

The preconference is organized by Theofilos Gkinopoulos (University of Nicosia, Athens Campus, Greece and University of Warsaw, Poland), Jessie Barton Hronešová (University College London, United Kingdom), Michał Bilewicz (University of Warsaw, Poland) and Mario Gollwitzer (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany).