INCORE conference

Recently, some of the Relational Harm team attended the 2026 Journal of Disappearance Studies conference at INCORE, Ulster University. It was an intense but rewarding three days filled with presentations from researchers, practitioners and artists, as well as film screenings, exhibitions, a play and a moving presentation from families of the disappeared in Northern Ireland.

The team put together the panel ‘Gender and Minority Harms’ alongside Liz Barnert and Chulani Kodikara. 

Phoebe Martin discussed enforced disappearances as a reproductive justice issue and Yajna Sanguhan focused on the long-term economic harms of disappearance in Sri Lanka. 

Three of the presentations featured papers from our upcoming special issue in the The International Journal of Human Rights, Rebekka Friedman presented her article (co-authored with Diana Florez) on fatherhood and disappearances in Sri Lanka. Liz presented her research on DNA tracing in cases of enforced disappearance, and Chulani discussed the continuum of harm impacting relatives of the disappeared. Thank you to the audience for their questions and engaging with five different papers.

It was great to present initial ideas from the Relational Harm: Targeting the Family in War and Oppression project, and to engage with other scholars as the field of disappearance studies develops!