Roxani Krystalli was recently an invited speaker at the Symposium on Gender, (In)Security, and Temporalities of Violence, convened at the University of Sydney, Australia. As part of the opening day, Roxani was invited to offer a reflection on what it means to “meet on stolen land,” during which she talked about what we miss in our explorations of violence and peace when we fail to take land into account. Roxani reflected on land issues not only through the perspective of individual possession (or, in the context of violence, dispossession), but also through reference to broader relationships between humans, nature, non-humans, and ecosystems. Roxani also called for understanding land and violence alike by going beyond academic texts on this topic to include poetry, fiction, and other forms of writing and knowing often marginalized within academia. In addition to speaking at and attending the Symposium, Roxani was part of a pre-conference workshop for graduate students conducting research on topics related to war and peace.

During the same trip, Roxani gave a lecture at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, in which she drew from her in-depth research in Colombia to reflect on the linkages between structural violence, victimhood in conflict, and transitional justice mechanisms.