Dr Roxani Krystalli

Dr Roxani Krystalli

Senior Lecturer

Researcher profile

Phone
+44 (0)1334 46 1935
Email
rk70@st-andrews.ac.uk

 

Biography

Dr Roxani Krystalli is a Senior Lecturer at the University of St Andrews. Her research and teaching focus on feminist peace and conflict studies, as well as on the politics of nature and place. A central question animating Roxani's work within and beyond the academy is what sustains life in the face of loss.

Roxani is currently the co-Principal Investigator of a research project on the role of love and care in remaking worlds after loss, including violence, grief, and ecological losses. The project is carried out collaboratively with Dr Philipp Schulz at the University of Bremen, and is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the German Research Foundation (DFG).

For over a decade, Roxani has worked at the intersection of gender and peace-building as an academic researcher and humanitarian practitioner. Roxani has partnered with several international and community-based organizations, including Oxfam GB, Mercy Corps, the Feinstein International Center, various UN agencies, Beyond Borders, and more, to understand the experiences of conflict-affected communities. Her work has particularly focused on developing ethical and rigorous methodologies for documenting gendered harms. Roxani regularly advises international organizations and NGOs on various aspects of gender, justice, and peace-building.

Roxani's first book, Good Victims: The Political as a Feminist Question  (Oxford University Press, 2024), is based on in-depth engagement in Colombia over the course of a decade. In it, Roxani argues for the possibilities of politics through, rather than in opposition to, the status of "victim," and shows how victimhood becomes a pillar of reimagining the state in the wake of war. Good Victims also sheds light on the ethical and methodological dilemmas that arise when contemplating the legacies of transitional justice mechanisms. Roxani's research on the politics and hierarchies of victimhood in Colombia received the Peter Ackerman Award at The Fletcher School in 2020. In the same year, her article on the ethics and methods of narrating victimhood was the runner-up for the Cynthia Enloe prize at the International Feminist Journal of Politics. 

In 2023, the British International Studies Association awarded Roxani the Early Career Excellence in Teaching International Studies Prize. Her class on the Politics of Nature and Place received the Golden Dandelion award, "in recognition of considerable contribution to education for sustainable development." Through her feminist pedagogy, Roxani is committed to fostering a critical curiosity about power, an experiential education grounded in place, and an imagination of more just worlds.

Roxani's research has been supported by numerous grants and fellowships from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the British Academy, the Scotland's Future Series, the United States Institute of Peace, the National Science Foundation, the Folke Bernadotte Academy, the Social Science Research Council, the Henry J. Leir Institute, and the World Peace Foundation. Her blog received the Best Blog award at the International Studies Association in 2019.

Roxani holds a PhD and MA from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, as well as a BA from Harvard University. She was born and raised in Thessaloniki, Greece.

Research areas

Dr Krystalli's research, teaching, and supervision interests include: 

  • love and loss
  • the politics and hierarchies of victimhood
  • critical approaches to transitional justice and humanitarianism
  • ethics and methods of researching political violence
  • the politics of nature and place
  • narrative and storytelling in the study of politics
  • care, beauty, and joy in the shadow of war and peace

PhD supervision

  • Q Manivannan
  • Kendra Löwer

Selected publications

 

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