My research examines peace processes after war and conflict and engages with three main themes: local reconciliation processes and transitional justice; memory politics and cultural heritage; and women's experience and knowledge of war and security.

More generally, my ambition is to seek to understand how everyday practices and narratives are connected to more comprehensive discourses and institutions on a collective, national or global level. I often do close readings of micro-political events using, among other things, narrative analysis and spatial analysis, and the point of departure is often phenomenological where embodied experiences are at the center. I have conducted fieldwork in Bosnia-Herzegovina above all, but also in Rwanda, South Africa, Israel/Palestine and Belgium and based on empirical analysis I seek to theoretically develop the understanding of what can be called 'lived' peace.

I have recently concluded several research projects that address issues related to memory politics of peace, cultural heritage of war, and dynamics of divided cities. Another project has studied knowledge production on war through women's narratives, with a focus on Yazidi women's experiences under the ISIS reign.

Conceptually, I work a lot with the multi-layered meanings of silence, the tension between remembering and forgetting, meaning-making through places and things, agents and gender, and narrative (in)coherence and testimony. The latter is the focus of a new research project that analyzes testimonies from women who lived through the Nazi concentration camp Ravensbrück and relate them to later stories from women about war and mass violence: Beyond the Archive: Gendering Holocaust knowledge production through women's testimonies in the Ravensbrück archive. Funded by the Swedish Research Council (VR) 2024-2026. With Annika Björkdahl, Lund University.

My research has been published in leading international journals, such as Security Dialogue, International Journal of Transitional Justice, Memory Studies, Political Psychology and Cooperation and Conflict, and my book contributions by leading academic press. I regularly participate in Swedish media as a writer and expert.

Google Scholar Profile ‪Johanna Mannergren Selimovic‬ - ‪Google Scholar‬ External link.

I am Section Editor (Peacegraphy) of Palgrave Encyclopedia of Peace and Conflict Studies. External link.

I am Associate Senior Researcher at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs and have previously been a visiting researcher at UCL (Université Catholique de Louvain) in Belgium.

Publications last five years

Mannergren J , Björkdahl A, Buckley-Zistel S, Kappler S, and Williams, T. 2024 . Peace and the Politics of Memory. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Eastmond M and Mannergren Selimovic J. 2024. Silence and Transitional Justice. In eds Meierhenrich J, Hinton A and Douglas L Oxford Handbook of Transitional Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Mannergren J and Becirbasic B. 2024. The War in Ukraine. Its Geopolitical and Emotional Effects for Bosnia and Herzegovina. State of the Region Report. CBEES.

Mannergren Selimovic J. 2023. The Mass Graves and the Missing. Baltic Worlds. CBEES.

Björkdahl A and Mannergren Selimovic J. 2023. Places of Pain and Spaces of Silence: Re-Visiting a Bosnian Rape Camp. Geopolitics. DOI: 10.1080/14650045.2023.2265315 Länk till annan webbplats. External link.

Mannergren Selimovic J. 2023. The Politics of Reconciliation and Memory. In ed Mälksöö M Handbook on the Politics of Memory. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Mannergren Selimovic J. 2023. Gender, Memory, and Peace: Struggles between homogenization and fragmentation. In eds Bazin A, Hébert E, Rosoux V, Sangar E Memory Fragmentation from Below and Beyond the State. London: Routledge.

Mannergren Selimovic J. 2022. The Stuff from the Siege. Transitional Justice and the Power of Everyday Objects in Museums. International Journal of Transitional Justice 16 (2).

Mannergren Selimovic J. 2022. Challenging the ‘Here’ and ‘There’ of Peace and Conflict Research: Migrants’ Encounters with Streams of Violence and Streams of Peace. Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 16 (5).

Björkdahl A and Mannergren Selimovic J. 2021. Methodologies for feminist peace research. In eds Väyrynen T, Parashar S, Féron E, Confortini C Handbook of Feminist Peace Research. London: Routledge.

Mannergren Selimovic J. 2021. Articulating Presence of Absence. Everyday memory and the performance of silence in Sarajevo. In eds Gandolfo L, Otele O. Goav Y Post-Conflict Memorialization: Missing Memorials, Absent Bodies. London: Routledge.

Kappler S and Mannergren Selimovic J. 2021. Working with the cultural heritage of conflict for peacebuilding: Lessons learned from the Western Balkans. Brussels: The European Peacebuilding Liaison Office. (20 s.)

Al-Kahwati A and Mannergren Selimovic J. 2021. Addressing Atrocity in Syria: New Challenges for Transitional Justice. Stockholm: The Swedish Institute of International Affairs (27 s.)

Mannergren Selimovic J. 2021. Minnespolitik. Striden om det förflutna. Världspolitikens Dagsfrågor.

Mannergren Selimovic J. 2020. Gendered Silences in Conflict-affected Societies: A Typology. Peacebuilding 8 (1).

Eastmond M and Mannergren Selimovic J. 2020. Silence and Peacebuilding. Palgrave Encyclopedia of Peace and Conflict Studies. Palgrave.

Mannergren Selimovic J. 22 maj, 2020. Remembering Corona: the politics of memory and the pandemic. Utrikesmagasinet.