Speaking Out: Graphic Narrative as Alternative Jurisdiction

Abstract

Taking its cue from the recent “graphic turn” in law and humanities scholarship, this essay explores the potentially enabling possibilities of graphic literature as a site of doing justice. In particular, it connects critical work on graphic justice with recent theorisations of victims’ justice to ask whether graphic narrative(s) might provide an alternate space, or what Leigh Gilmore terms an “alternative jurisdiction,” that allows victims of international crimes and/or grave human rights violations to claim justice outside the formal bounds of law. From this perspective, the inquiry pursues two complementary aims. First, it seeks to offer new insight into the possibilities of graphic narrative to give voice to the lived experience of trauma and injustice – not just as testimony or evidence, nor as a mere humanistic gloss on the rigidly defined terrain of law, but rather as a form of justice itself. Second, it looks to present a set of fresh reflections on international law’s treatment of violent trauma, and on the sites and spaces within which victims’ justice might be effectively addressed and attained.