Congratulations from everyone at the Department of International Development to our colleague, now Dr Sinead McGrath, who successfully defended her thesis recently.
Her doctoral thesis explores whether programmes run by international migration organisations provide effective remedies for internally displaced women in the context of post-conflict transitional justice. In doing so the thesis aims to join the dots between discussions of gender and displacement, displacement and transitional justice, the programmatic work of international organisations (IOs) in relation to these issues and the experience of women beneficiaries of these IO interventions. Rejecting prevailing discourses that position IDP women as victims who lack agency, the thesis asks whether IO programming provides effective platforms from which women can exercise their agency in transitional contexts. These questions are all explored in relation to the case study of Colombia – a country with one of the highest rates of conflict-related internal displacement in the world – and the interventions of the UNHCR and the IOM.