Anita Ferrara

Anita Ferrara is an Associate Professor at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, University of Galway. She earned an honours BA in Political Science and International Relations at the University of Siena in 2001. She completed her postgraduate studies in International Studies and Diplomacy at the University of Florence in 2002. She obtained a Master’s in Human Rights and Conflict Management at Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa, in 2004. She completed her PhD in Law at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, in 2012.

She has been a Graduate Teaching Assistant and Teaching Fellow at SOAS, lecturing on post-conflict justice and reconciliation processes. Anita is the author of Assessing the Long-Term Impact of Truth Commissions: The Chilean Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Historical Perspective. The book is one of the first studies assessing the longer-term impact of Truth and Reconciliation Commissions and was translated into Spanish and published in 2021 by the prestigious publisher Alberto Hurtado University in Chile.

Anita Ferrara’s main research areas lie in transitional justice and human rights. Her research is strongly interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary, combining the field of transitional justice with political science, memory studies, archival studies, dispute resolution, and peacebuilding.

Before her academic career, Anita worked for United Nations agencies and NGOs in the field of human rights. She has worked at the Regional Office for South America of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Santiago, Chile, and at the United Nations Development Programme in Gaborone, Botswana. She also worked at the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) as an intern in the Human Rights Defenders Programme in Geneva.

Anita is fluent in English and Spanish and has a good working knowledge of Portuguese.

Anita's main research interests focus on the legal, political, and ethical dilemmas that states and societies face in addressing the legacy of mass atrocity crimes. She is particularly interested in exploring the challenges of linking justice initiatives to peace in post-conflict societies.

Anita has investigated the long-term impact and legacy of Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, with a specific emphasis on the Chilean case.

Her latest work focuses on Archives, the right to truth, and Memory. She is currently investigating the role of archives and documentation in transitional justice processes, with a particular focus on Latin America and Colombia's current transitional justice process.

She has also conducted research on Memory and Truth, exploring the impact of bottom-up approaches on memory-building after political violence and its legacy in contemporary Chile, as well as the role of memory sites in contemporary times of crisis.

She has supervised PhD research projects on transitional justice processes in Colombia, Liberia, and Chile, as well as on the use of archives in transnational human rights cases. She is currently supervising research projects on transitional justice, memory and restorative justice focused on Ethiopia and Brazil.

She founded and leads the Transitional Justice and Peacebuilding Research Cluster, which promotes research, debate, and discussion on transitional justice and peacebuilding in various contexts worldwide.