Introduction

While victim participation in transitional justice has often been subject to critique, victim movements have also actively expanded and reshaped the field, using its framework to advance increasingly diverse justice struggles. This introductory chapter adopts the lens of ‘victims-as-protagonists’, emphasizing the central role that victim-survivors have played in shaping transitional justice from its inception. It explores the macro-level dynamics that have amplified focus on victims’ roles in scholarship and policy, and maps key strands of existing literature. Against this backdrop, the chapter introduces a new conceptual framework of ‘generations of victim participation’, offering a more comprehensive account of how victims’ agency has shifted throughout three discernible phases: from grassroots activism, to institutional participation, and multi-faceted forms of resistance. Rather than presenting a linear progression, this framework foregrounds the overlapping and intersecting strategies through which victims pursue justice today, and how this calls for a rethinking of transitional justice’s boundaries and methodologies.