Sélima Kebaïli

Sélima Kebaïli is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Geneva (Institute for gender studies), where she teaches classes on gender and postcolonial studies. Her research focuses on development, gender, transitional justice, political violence and victimhood, mainly in the MENA region and Europe. She has degrees in political science from the University of Montreal and in gender studies from the EHESS in Paris, and received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the EHESS in 2021.

Using a qualitative approach and a multisite ethnography with both international organizations and victims, she explores the shaping of female victims' status and subjectivity with regard to political violence in transitional justice and post-conflict contexts. She asks how and why certain forms of suffering tend to be recognized, promoted, or otherwise marginalized by international organizations and political actors. She analyzes the effects of such processes on local NGOs and female victims' everyday lives. This question led her to develop a critical analysis of international organizations’ gender mainstreaming norms and practices, using a postcolonial and transnational feminist perspective. Her current book project deals with transitional justice and the making of the category of "indirect victim" in postrevolutionary Tunisia.

Resaerch fields

• Gender and International feminist interventions
• Transitional justice
• Violence, Conflict, and Peacebuilding
• International organisations, UN
• Critical development studies
• Postcolonial and transnational feminism
• Islam and anti-veiling policies in Europe and the MENA region