Myriam Denov
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 89749 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Myriam Denov |
| NOMBRES | Myriam |
| APELLIDO | Denov |
| FIRMA | DENOV M |
| AFILIACIONES | McGill University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7963-1136 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 70 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 245 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 70 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2002 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 9 |
‘People remained in the LRA partly because they had wives and children’
The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is well known for the violence it has waged across the African Great Lakes region. While the armed group has been studied extensively, limited attention has been paid to the deliberate creation of families formed through forced marriage and the birth of children conceived through sexual violence. In this article, we explore the strategic value and impact of the creation of LRA ‘families’ through the perspectives o…
“Wow, That's Our Grandma!”
“Comfort women” refers to the exploitation of women and girls by the system of sexual slavery of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. While societal prejudice hindered most survivors’ disclosures, little research addresses family perspectives. This study explores the views of family members of Taiwanese survivors involved in the redress movement regarding survivors’ sexual victimization and public disclosures. We conducted in-depth int…
Strengthening support for local practitioners who perform social work functions in complex emergencies
This study explored perspectives on effective forms of support for Syrians who performed social work functions during the complex emergency in Northwest Syria through 29 interviews with international and Syrian practitioners. The study found that performing social work functions during the crisis was a unique and often difficult experience for practitioners, but performing social work functions was nonetheless important to them. Practitioners hig…
From Fearing Harm to Inviting Transformative Learning
Grounded in positivist approaches to the ethical conduct of scientific inquiry, emotions in research have traditionally been treated as something to be avoided due to potential risks both to participants and to scientific objectivity. In contrast, current approaches to qualitative participatory research have encouraged attention to emotion as beneficial to knowledge production, while still requiring sensitivity to the safety of all actors in the …
Social ecosystems of trafficked conflict-related sexual violence survivors and their children
We explore the intersectional risk of stigma and violence faced by women and girls trafficked by armed groups, and their ‘children born of war’ (CBOW) in Nigeria and Iraq. Failing to address intersectional violence, stigma and discrimination has severe implications for women’s and children’s health, wellbeing, intergenerational trauma, sustained reintegration, and Women, Youth, Peace and Security Agendas, Security Council Resolutions 1325/2467 an…
There Were Always People Watching Us”
In Cambodia, in the name of “revolution,” between 1975 and 1979, atrocities were committed against civilians resulting in the death of two million Cambodians from starvation, illness, forced labour, torture, or execution. The Khmer Rouge (KR) regime also imposed forced marriages, which were used to advance its unique socio-political and ideological goals. While control and surveillance played vital roles in the creation and implementation of forc…
Social work practice in complex emergencies
Existing scholarship discusses social work during war and conflict, but less social work scholarship specifically names and focuses on the reality of complex emergencies. This article discusses perspectives on "good" social work practice in complex emergencies by drawing upon a study of Northwest Syria which included 29 interviews with international and Syrian practitioners. Findings: This study found that although Syria did not have a formal soc…
Wayfinding in arts-based methods
In this article, we explore the wartime and post-war lives of a unique group of internally displaced children—those who were born in Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) captivity in northern Uganda. We draw upon in-depth interviews and individual and collective art-making activities with 79 children born of conflict-related sexual violence in three districts in northern Uganda. Using the concept of “wayfinding,” we highlight children’s perspectives and …
Speaking Up
Children born of wartime rape have long been invisible, ostracized, and silenced. This predicament explains blind spots in transitional justice discussions and practice that have neglected, until recently, both their victimhood and agency. Explanations range from (the lack of) international protective norms, persistent stigma in their local societies and communities, and children’s de-agentification owing to them being perceived through their mot…
Beyond macro-indicators
Hybrid threats and human security
Purpose This paper examines the evolving landscape of hybrid warfare and hybrid interference and the impact of these hybrid threats on the lives of civilians. Design/methodology/approach This paper outlines the origins of the concept of hybrid warfare, its strengths and limitations and the push for conceptual refinement, leading to the introduction of the concept of hybrid interference. The key characteristics of hybridity are addressed, particul…
"Exploring "Language of Suffering
In this paper, we explore idioms of distress among Eritrean refugees currently living in Israel, a refugee population that has experienced profound forms of violence and upheaval in their country of origin, yet largely overlooked in clinical research. A significant portion of Eritrean refugees have, over the past decade, sought asylum in Israel, and Eritrean refugees make up Israel's largest refugee population. To explore their unique idioms of d…
Remembering to forget
In 1994, during the Rwandan genocide against the Tutsi, sexual violence was used as a powerful weapon of genocide, affecting an estimated 250,000–500,000 women and girls. Limited attention has been paid to the intergenerational implications of conflict-related sexual violence. This forum contribution draws on the voices of 44 Rwandan women who bore children as a result of rape, and 60 youth born of conflict-related sexual violence. We explore the…
Curating the Ama museum for Taiwanese comfort women
As survivors of the Japanese military’s sexual slavery system (‘comfort women’) have rapidly passed away, museums preserving their memories have been key for justice, advocacy, and memorialization. Taiwan’s Ama Museum, established in Taipei in 2016, was dedicated to commemorating Taiwanese comfort women. This study documents the museum’s curatorial approach between 2016 and 2018 at its original Dadaocheng site, focusing on how it embodied a human…
Walking out of the shadows
Previous studies have found that Taiwanese comfort women survivors faced multiple forms of trauma from the comfort women system, and that societal prejudice against women's sexual victimization further impacted their marriages. However, there is minimal research exploring how sexual trauma may have impacted comfort women survivors' experiences of motherhood, alongside the consequences of survivors' experiences on subsequent generations. This arti…
War, forced displacement, and alcohol abuse
Refugees are at high risk of alcohol abuse due to their experiences of structural, physical, sexual, and psychological violence in their countries of origin, during flight, and within host communities. Given the prolonged civil war in their country, South Sudanese have continued to flee profound forms of violence and now constitute the largest population of refugees in Uganda. However, little is known about their displacement experiences, as well…
Children and youth born of conflict-related sexual violence
Exploring the Lives of Children Born of Conflict‐Related Sexual Violence Through Art
Although the realities of children born of conflict‐related sexual violence have gained increased attention, limited research has explored the issue from the perspectives of the children themselves. Drawing upon a sample of 79 children born of sexual violence in Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) captivity, and using arts‐based methods, this study explored the wartime and post‐conflict experiences directly from children born of conflict‐related sexual …
Wartime, Flight, and Resettlement Realities of Unaccompanied Eritrean Girls in Israel
We conducted a qualitative study among Eritrean refugees residing in Israel to explore the impact of armed conflict and displacement on adolescent girls’ transition to adulthood. We conducted 19 interviews with young Eritrean refugee women who, as girls and young women, escaped conflict-affected Eritrea and made their way on foot, through Sudan, the Sinai desert, and Egypt to Israel. Our findings reveal how structural and symbolic violence shaped…
Umwana w'umugore
This article explores the challenges, needs and capacities of girls born of conflict-related sexual violence during the 1994 Rwandan genocide against the Tutsi. Twenty-nine interviews and 11 focus groups were conducted with girls born of genocidal rape, alongside 44 interviews with mothers of children born of genocidal rape. In a society where Umwana w'umugore - being 'the child of a woman' - is considered an insult for children born of rape, gen…
Families Formed Under Forced Marriage During the Genocide in Cambodia
This paper explores the realities of men and women forced to marry by the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, as well as the perspectives of children born of forced marriages. Forced marriage has been predominantly investigated in relation to violence and coercion towards girls and women. However, less attention has been paid to forced unions involving both spouses, as well as to children born of these couples. Data were collected from 80 participant…
On the Ethics of Getting the Word Out
Despite the growing body of literature dedicated to ethical and methodological issues related to youth engagement and youth participation in arts-based research, the ethics of ownership in relation to the production and sharing of visual artefacts remains an understudied area. This work is particularly critical in the context of war-affected youth, and youth addressing issues of gender-based violence in their lives. Drawing on the voices and pers…
‘We vowed by force, not by our heart’
While many of the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge regime during the Cambodian genocide have been well documented, forced marriage remains poorly understood. This article documents the perspectives of women and men who experienced forced marriage under the Khmer Rouge, using primary data from interviews with 28 women and 30 men. The interviews reveal the profound violence, coercion and threats that surrounded the experience of forced marri…
The impact of trauma, flight and protracted displacement on the mental health of Eritrean refugees living in Israel
Multiple studies have found that refugees significantly underutilize mental health services. Yet, little is known about how refugees who live in contexts of protracted displacement cope with and recover from violence, trauma and chronic stress. The unique experiences of refugees living in Israel, particularly those fleeing the violence of Eritrea, is even less understood. This study sought to explore strategies of coping used by Eritrean refugee …
The meaning of land and place for children born of war in northern Uganda
The abduction and forced marriage of females was a key military strategy of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) during northern Uganda’s civil war (1986–2007). Thousands of abducted girls became pregnant from sexual violence, giving birth to large numbers of children born of war. This article explores the experiences of 85 children born in LRA captivity, with a particular focus on the implications and meaning of both land and place. In the aftermath…
Coping with the trauma of war
Children across the globe have been implicated in armed conflict as both victims and participants. During Sierra Leone’s decade-long civil war, thousands of children, both boys and girls, participated directly in armed conflict or were recruited for labour or sexual exploitation in armed groups. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with 80 children formerly associated with Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Front, this paper explores children’s expe…
I Didn't Want to Die So I Joined Them
Child soldiers are generally portrayed either as victims of structural forces that are beyond their control and comprehension or as knowing agents of mayhem in search of revolutionary change or personal gain. Yet these singular perspectives are bedevilled by their dialectical limitations, the one overlooking capacities of individual will, the other prone to discounting historical and socioeconomic contexts. In this paper, through the lens of stru…
Wartime Sexual Violence
Wartime sexual violence continues to be widespread and systematic in contemporary conflicts. Although the problem is gaining increasing international attention, it has remained, for the most part, peripheral within the domain of security studies. However, the human security agenda may have the capacity to raise the profile of wartime sexual violence and offer a useful framework from which to understand and respond to the unique needs of war-affec…
Mask-Making and Drawing as Method
Globally, the numbers of children living in conflict zones and displaced by war have risen dramatically over the past two decades, and with this, scholarly attention to the impacts of war on children. More recently, researchers have examined how war-affected children are being studied, revealing important shortcomings. These limitations relate to the lack of child participation in research, the need for researchers to engage children in the resea…
Girl Soldiers and Human Rights
The issue of child soldiers has become an issue of global concern. More than 250,000 soldiers under the age of 18 are fighting in conflicts in over 40 countries around the world. While there is ample descriptive evidence of the conditions and factors underlying the rise of child soldiery in the developing world, most of the literature has portrayed this as a uniquely male phenomenon, ultimately neglecting the experiences and perspectives of girls…
Post-War Stigma, Violence and ‘Kony Children’
The R 2 P framework underscores the responsibility to protect populations caught up in the maelstrom of war and armed conflict, and as such, holds relevance for children born of conflict-related sexual violence. This paper explores the role and framework of R 2 P in relation to children born of conflict-related sexual violence in northern Uganda, a population largely overlooked in the post-war period. Drawing upon the direct experiences and persp…
Separated Refugee Children in Canada
Stateless and parentless, separated refugee children may become the focus of multiple discourses concerning migration and youth. Relying upon the conceptual framework risk identity, this article explores the experiences, perspectives, and constructions of separated children in Canada. Interviews with separated children and stakeholders reveal two themes of risk. The first centers on separated children as refugees and can be understood in relation…
Reconstruction versus transformation
Engaging the Voices of Girls in the Aftermath of Sierra Leone's Conflict
Myriam Denov, Richard MacLure, Engaging the Voices of Girls in the Aftermath of Sierra Leone's Conflict: Experiences and Perspectives in a Culture of Violence, Anthropologica, Vol. 48, No. 1, War and Peace / La guerre et la paix (2006), pp. 73-85
Turnings and Epiphanies
The militarization of children and their active participation in conflict continues to be a global phenomenon affecting hundreds of thousands of children. Yet many of the realities of child soldiery remain unclear and continue to be under-researched. In particular, the process of militarization and how it impinges on the identities and actions of children who are drawn into conflict remains poorly understood. Similarly, the experiences of childre…
I Asked Myself If I Would Ever Love My Baby”
The 1994 Rwandan genocide was characterized by brutal acts of widespread sexual violence against women that, for some, led to unwanted pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood. This study explores the perspectives and experiences of 44 Rwandan women with children born of genocidal rape through in-depth qualitative interviews. Emerging from the data are the themes of identity and belonging, ambivalence, and truth-telling in the mother-child relations…
The nexus of war, resettlement, and education
Girl soldiers
Scholarship on political violence and armed conflict has long been gender-blind. Often subsumed within the category of ‘children’ (who are assumed to be male in the context of soldiery), girl soldiers have been subjected to a double invisibility. However, in the last decade the literature dedicated to the topic of girls within armed groups has grown. We now have a much clearer understanding of girls’ strengths and challenges, and clear evidence o…
The myth of innocence
Although child sexual abuse has been studied extensively, minimal attention has been paid to sexual abuse by females. This paper explores the prevalence of female sex offending and reveals the paradoxes that exist within the available data. Moreover, it highlights the role of traditional sexual scripts in impeding the official recognition of the problem. Traditional sexual scripts, particularly the perception of females as sexually passive, harml…
Identity formation and change in children and youth born of wartime sexual violence in northern Uganda
Thousands of children have been born of conflict-related rape within armed groups, eventually being integrated into civilian life. Yet, little is known about the ways in which captivity and reintegration into society following armed conflict impinge upon young people’s identity formation. This study explored the life stories of children and youth born of conflict-related sexual violence within the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) as a means to invest…
One cannot take away the stain”
This article explores the role and impact of rejection and stigma on a group of 22 demobilized youth who had been part of an armed group in Colombia. Drawing upon qualitative interviews, the article begins with an exploration of participants’ paths to civilian life and paints a picture of the constant transitions and adaptations that were inherent to the reintegration process. These adaptations included displacement and the transition from rural …
Children born of wartime rape on fatherhood
The power of sweet words
During Sierra Leone’s civil war, women and girls experienced numerous forms of gender-based violence and gross human rights violations, which had profound implications both during and following the conflict. In the war’s aftermath, Sierra Leonean social workers provided crucial forms of support to war-affected women and girls. Drawing on in-depth interviews, this article explores local forms of social work assistance provided to women in the post…
An arts-based approach with youth born of genocidal rape in Rwanda
Given the tragedy of war and genocide, words often cannot adequately capture the complexity of war-related experiences. Researchers are increasingly utilizing the arts to enable multiple forms of expression, as well as for its therapeutic and empowering qualities. This paper outlines the use of the "river of life," an arts-based autobiographical mapping tool, conducted with 60 youth born of rape during the genocide against Tutsi in Rwanda who con…
Trajectories of violence and survival
Children's rights or rhetoric? Assessing Canada's Youth Criminal Justice Act and its compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
Transgenerational trauma in Rwandan genocidal rape survivors and their children
Multiple theories, including attachment, family systems, and epigenetics, among many others, have been invoked to explain the mechanisms through which trauma is transmitted from one generation to the next. Data from in-depth qualitative interviews in Rwanda more than two decades after the genocide, with 44 mothers of children born of genocidal rape, and in-depth interviews and focus groups with a total of 60 youth born of genocidal rape, were ana…
You Feel Like You Belong Nowhere”
Globally, the systematic use of sexual violence in modern warfare has resulted in the birth of thousands of children. Research has begun to focus on this often invisible group and the obstacles they face, including stigma, discrimination and exclusion based on their birth origins. Although sexual violence during the Rwandan genocide has been documented on a massive scale, little research has focused on the relational dynamics between mothers who …
The Many Harms of Forced Marriage
Harnessing an interdisciplinary framework that merges elements of law and social science, this article aims to recast the crime of forced marriage, and thereby enhance accountability, in light of knowledge acquired through ethnographic fieldwork in northern Uganda. More specifically, we draw upon the perspectives and experiences of 20 men who were ‘bush husbands’ in the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). These men were abducted by the LRA between the …
Regime of Truth
This paper argues for a re-examination of mental health responses to refugee youth seeking asylum in high-income countries. Reviewing international literature related to mental health and social care services for refugee children and youth and drawing upon Foucault’s concepts of power, truth and discourse, we explore and question the predominance of the bio-medical model in responding to refugee children’s distress. We demonstrate that, despite n…
Casualties of Aboriginal Displacement in Canada
The concept of displacement has long been associated with individuals within poor and developing nations, living under conditions of conflict and civil unrest. Conversely, little research attention has been paid to displacement among Aboriginal peoples within the context of wealthy and developed nations such as Canada. This paper explores the consequences of internal displacement for the Innu Nation of Labrador. In particular, it examines how Inn…
The myth of innocence
Although child sexual abuse has been studied extensively, minimal attention has been paid to sexual abuse by females. This paper explores the prevalence of female sex offending and reveals the paradoxes that exist within the available data. Moreover, it highlights the role of traditional sexual scripts in impeding the official recognition of the problem. Traditional sexual scripts, particularly the perception of females as sexually passive, harml…
Children's rights or rhetoric? Assessing Canada's Youth Criminal Justice Act and its compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
Wartime Sexual Violence
Wartime sexual violence continues to be widespread and systematic in contemporary conflicts. Although the problem is gaining increasing international attention, it has remained, for the most part, peripheral within the domain of security studies. However, the human security agenda may have the capacity to raise the profile of wartime sexual violence and offer a useful framework from which to understand and respond to the unique needs of war-affec…
I Didn't Want to Die So I Joined Them
Child soldiers are generally portrayed either as victims of structural forces that are beyond their control and comprehension or as knowing agents of mayhem in search of revolutionary change or personal gain. Yet these singular perspectives are bedevilled by their dialectical limitations, the one overlooking capacities of individual will, the other prone to discounting historical and socioeconomic contexts. In this paper, through the lens of stru…
Engaging the Voices of Girls in the Aftermath of Sierra Leone's Conflict
Myriam Denov, Richard MacLure, Engaging the Voices of Girls in the Aftermath of Sierra Leone's Conflict: Experiences and Perspectives in a Culture of Violence, Anthropologica, Vol. 48, No. 1, War and Peace / La guerre et la paix (2006), pp. 73-85
Turnings and Epiphanies
The militarization of children and their active participation in conflict continues to be a global phenomenon affecting hundreds of thousands of children. Yet many of the realities of child soldiery remain unclear and continue to be under-researched. In particular, the process of militarization and how it impinges on the identities and actions of children who are drawn into conflict remains poorly understood. Similarly, the experiences of childre…
Negotiating (In)Security
Girl Soldiers and Human Rights
The issue of child soldiers has become an issue of global concern. More than 250,000 soldiers under the age of 18 are fighting in conflicts in over 40 countries around the world. While there is ample descriptive evidence of the conditions and factors underlying the rise of child soldiery in the developing world, most of the literature has portrayed this as a uniquely male phenomenon, ultimately neglecting the experiences and perspectives of girls…
Reconstruction versus transformation
Child Soldiers
Tragically, violence and armed conflict have become commonplace in the lives of many children around the world. Not only have millions of children been forced to witness war and its atrocities, but many are drawn into conflict as active participants. Nowhere has this been more evident than in Sierra Leone during its 11-year civil war. Drawing upon in-depth interviews and focus groups with former child soldiers of Sierra Leone's rebel Revolutionar…
Coping with the trauma of war
Children across the globe have been implicated in armed conflict as both victims and participants. During Sierra Leone’s decade-long civil war, thousands of children, both boys and girls, participated directly in armed conflict or were recruited for labour or sexual exploitation in armed groups. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with 80 children formerly associated with Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Front, this paper explores children’s expe…
Separated Refugee Children in Canada
Stateless and parentless, separated refugee children may become the focus of multiple discourses concerning migration and youth. Relying upon the conceptual framework risk identity, this article explores the experiences, perspectives, and constructions of separated children in Canada. Interviews with separated children and stakeholders reveal two themes of risk. The first centers on separated children as refugees and can be understood in relation…
Tactical maneuvering and calculated risks
Similar to refugees in general, independent child migrants are frequently constructed in academic and popular discourse as passive and powerless or as untrustworthy and potentially threatening. Such portrayals fail to capture how these youth actively navigate the complex experiences of forced migration. Drawing on interviews with independent child migrants who arrived in Canada and on the conceptual framework of social navigation, we argue that c…
Child Soldiers and Iconography
Over the past decade, child soldiers have inundated the popular media. Images of boys armed with AK47s appear ubiquitous, providing a cautionary tale of innocent childhood gone awry. While these representations turn commonly held assumptions of a protected and innocuous childhood on its head, what they conceal is as provocative as what they reveal. Popular news media tells us little about the children behind the guns or the complexity of their wa…
The power of sweet words
During Sierra Leone’s civil war, women and girls experienced numerous forms of gender-based violence and gross human rights violations, which had profound implications both during and following the conflict. In the war’s aftermath, Sierra Leonean social workers provided crucial forms of support to war-affected women and girls. Drawing on in-depth interviews, this article explores local forms of social work assistance provided to women in the post…
Girl soldiers
Scholarship on political violence and armed conflict has long been gender-blind. Often subsumed within the category of ‘children’ (who are assumed to be male in the context of soldiery), girl soldiers have been subjected to a double invisibility. However, in the last decade the literature dedicated to the topic of girls within armed groups has grown. We now have a much clearer understanding of girls’ strengths and challenges, and clear evidence o…
One cannot take away the stain”
This article explores the role and impact of rejection and stigma on a group of 22 demobilized youth who had been part of an armed group in Colombia. Drawing upon qualitative interviews, the article begins with an exploration of participants’ paths to civilian life and paints a picture of the constant transitions and adaptations that were inherent to the reintegration process. These adaptations included displacement and the transition from rural …
Social Navigation and the Resettlement Experiences of Separated Children in Canada
This article explores the implications of language and dis- course for the experiences of separated refugee children in Canada, and the ways in which anti-refugee and anti-child discourses shape the terrain of resettlement. The article begins by tracing the academic and popular discourses of refugee populations generally, and separated children specifically. Given the formulaic and rigid portrayals and representations, we introduce the concept of…
Children born of wartime rape
War-affected children's approach to resettlement
In Canada, the resettlement of thousands of war-affected children every year poses new challenges to child and family services. Since young people arrive from multiple contexts either alone or accompanied by family or caregiver(s), after having endured significant trauma, stress, and adversity, conventional approaches to service delivery are seldom adequate. Drawing on anthropology of childhood literature, this paper calls for increased inclusion…
Research as intervention? Exploring the health and well-being of children and youth facing global adversity through participatory visual methods
Global health research typically relies on the translation of knowledge (from health professionals to the community) and the dissemination of knowledge (from research results to the wider public). However, Greenhalgh and Wieringa [2011. Is it time to drop the 'knowledge translation' metaphor? A critical literature review. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 104(12), 501-509. doi: 10.1258/jrsm.2011.110285 ] suggest 'that while "translation" …
The Right to Home
There is limited international recognition that domicide—or intentional destruction of home—is a violation of children's rights. While human rights documents allude to the crime of domicide, it is, however, never explicitly referred to as a human rights violation. Through an analysis of human rights documents and with a focus on the experiences of children, families and communities, we argue that domicide should be explicitly acknowledged as a vi…
Children and Political Violence
Narratives of Ambivalence
Published (Print):01 Dec 2016
Sociology (51 obras) · Political science (47 obras) · Psychology (42 obras) · Migration, Health and Trauma (38 obras) · Gender Studies (37 obras) · Law (36 obras) · Gender, Security, and Conflict (35 obras) · Criminology (30 obras) · Gender Studies (27 obras) · Law (27 obras)