This article explores the methodological obstacles to research on wartime sexual violence, and the extent to which they can be overcome with archival research. It discusses issues of concept formation, counting victims of human rights abuse, and coding violations.
International Studies Quarterly (2009)
This article is a comparative analysis of sexual violence perpetrated by state armed forces during the Guatemalan and Peruvian civil wars.
I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the College of Wooster. My dissertation examines the patterns of state-perpetrated sexual violence in Latin America, and finds evidence that both civilian and military leaders acquiesced to the use of sexual violence as part of its doctrine of total warfare against counterinsurgency groups.
More generally, my research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of comparative politics and international relations, with a focus on human rights and political violence, transitional justice, and gender and conflict processes.