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2021-2022 marks the 10th year of the AHDA fellowship program. Since 2012, the fellowship has hosted at least 107 fellows who represent over 48 countries and territories. Below please find information regarding the professional interests and accomplishments of fellows and alumni. While at Columbia, fellows design individual projects that address some aspect of a history of gross human rights violations in their society, country, and/or region.
Click here to read more about the fellows' projects.
Click here to read about more about the work of our Fellows.
Bosch Stiftung Fellow
Raba Gjoshi is the Executive Director of the NGO Youth Initiative for Human Rights in Kosovo (YIHR KS). Since 2007, Raba has led a range of public actions and campaigns that address issues related to missing persons, freedom of expression, right to information, rights of minorities, antiracism and antisemitism and active citizenship. Working with an organization which combines different approaches, Raba has also been engaged in the monitoring of human rights legislation, institutions and mechanisms, documenting and reporting on human rights abuses and promoting human rights values through education and activism. More generally, as executive director, Raba Gjoshi is responsible for overall programmatic, financial, and administrative work of the organization, including fundraising, project development and implementation, general operations on the day-to-day level as well ensuring the implementation of longer term goals.
In the historical dialogue arena, Raba’s work has concentrated on dialogue and exchange amongst young people; building projects that initiate public dialogue and acknowledge victims; and projects that support initiatives for documentation, justice, healing and memory. The project Raba intends to develop as an AHDA fellow will focus on the issue of deportations during the war in Kosovo, and in particular the collection and documentation of facts. Her intention is to engage local communities in this work in order to create a space for dialogue and collective memory.
Open Society Foundation – Turkey Fellow
Trained as an historian, Asena Günal currently works as program coordinator of DEPO, a center for arts and culture in Istanbul. DEPO was founded in 2009 by Anadolu Kültür, a civil society organization working to create open spaces for artistic collaboration believing that cultural exchange and cooperation can lead to dialogue and mutual understanding among individuals with different social backgrounds and national or ethnic identities. Aside from its artistic program (exhibitions, installations, film screenings), DEPO organizes conferences, workshops, lectures and panel discussions on topics relating to historical, political and social issues. It also publishes an e-journal on contemporary art practices in Turkey and the surrounding region, and is considered an alternative space that is open to politically critical exhibitions and events. Asena is responsible for the organization and coordination of all activities that take place at DEPO. Last year, for example, she coordinated an exhibition and edited a book entitled Bir Daha Asla!: Geçmişle Yüzleşme ve Özür (Never Again!: Apology and Coming to Terms with the Past, İstanbul, 2013), which explored eight cases of political apologies from around the world.
Asena became an advocate of historical dialogue and accountability first as an editor of social science texts at a publishing house known for highlighting politically taboo and controversial issues (she co-edited, for example, 90’larda Türkiye’de Feminizm (Feminism in Turkey in the 1990s, İstanbul, 2002) and then as a doctoral student of history. Having a PhD degree in history and collaborating with various civil society institutions, Asena focuses on projects that deal with the past, but that also seek to make individuals explore what kind of society they live in today, and what future they would like to build. As an AHDA fellow, Asena plans to develop a proposal for a new exhibition and publication project that focuses on eight state crimes in Turkey, all of which need to be acknowledged and reckoned with to solve ongoing ethno-religious and political conflicts. Crimes such as the 1915 Armenian Genocide, the 1938 Dersim Massacre, the forced disappearances of the 1990s and the 2011 military attack on civilians in Roboski were crimes committed by the state or by state-sanctioned proxies. A discussion regarding possible redress with regard to these acts of violence will transform the rhetoric of protest to more constructive and future-oriented policies that have the potential to impact the general public and policy-makers.
