Alexandra Lebedeva is lecturer and researcher at the National Centre for Women’s Peace (Nationellt centrum för kvinnofrid) at Uppsala University. Her PhD in Ethics is a study on truth commissions as institutions of transitional justice. Her current research focuses on gender-based violence, migration, and human rights.

The concept of vulnerability is gaining significant attention in research and international policy, including such fields as human rights and gender-based violence. Nevertheless, the use of vulnerability in legal and political contexts through the imposition of special vulnerability regimes (e.g., particularly vulnerable groups) has faced some criticism. Drawing on the previous critique, this presentation will pursue two aims: first, to examine how political accounts of vulnerability might provide critical tools for assessing its political and legal uses; and second, to critically scrutinize the political use of vulnerability in a given context to illustrate the problems that might arise. Sweden’s work against gender-based violence, where migrant women are identified as particularly vulnerable group, serves as an empirical context of the study.

Find out more about Alexandra Lebedeva here.