Heather Tasker

Education:

• BA, UPEI
• MA, York University
• PhD, York University

Profile:

Dr. Heather Tasker is an Assistant Professor in the department of Political Science and the Law, Justice & Society program at Dalhousie University. Dr. Tasker’s research explores gendered violence in conflict-affected contexts through the lenses of transitional justice, human rights, and feminist legal studies. In collaboration with community-based partners, she has examined women’s ‘law-making’ in forced marriages, access to justice following peacekeeper-perpetrated sexual abuse, and the development of transitional justice mechanisms in response to conflict-related sexual violence. Ongoing projects explore how access to healthcare impacts legal decision-making following sexual violence in the DRC, and tracks the inclusion of CRSV survivors in justice mechanisms in Liberia and North East Nigeria.

Dr. Tasker’s recent work has been published in the Journal of Peace Research, Law & Society Review, International Studies Review and in edited book collections focused on socio-legal methods and critical theory. She is a member of the Law & Society Association, Canadian Law & Society Association, Women, Peace and Security Network- Canada, and the Missing Peace Scholars Network (USIP).

Selected Publications:

Tasker, H.; Bunting, A.; Van der Werf, K.; Bartels, S. (2023). “Those MONUSCO Agents Left While We Were Still Pregnant”: Accountability and Support for Peacekeeper-Fathered Children in the DRC.”  Journal of Peace Research (advance online access).

Wagner, K.; Tasker, H.; Vahedi, L.; Bartels, S.; Lee, S. (2022). “Born between War and Peace:

Situating Peacekeeper-Fathered Children in Research on Children Born of War.” Frontiers in Political Science (4).

Bunting, A.; Tasker, H.; Lockhart, E. (2021). “Women's Law‐Making and Contestations of “Marriage” in African Conflict Situations.” Law & Society Review, 55(4), 614-633.

Kollie, T.C.; Cooper, A.; Tasker, H. Bartels, S.; Bunting, A. “Gendered impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on marginalized women in Liberia: Resilience and enduring challenges.” International Studies Review, Forum: Women, Peace and Security, Gendered Risks, and COVID-19. (In-Press)

Tasker, H. “Resolving Justice: Frictions between Community-based Organizations and the United Nations Women Peace and Security agenda.” In Bunting, A., Kiconco, A., & Quirk, J. (Eds.). (2023). Research as More Than Extraction: Knowledge Production and Gender-based Violence in African Societies. Ohio University Press.

Tasker, H. (2023) “Through Different Lenses: Law, Space, and Humanitarianism Within a UNHCR Photography Project” in Alam, M.; Dwyer, P.; Roots, K. (eds.) Violence, Imagination and Resistance: Socio-legal Interrogations of Power. Athabasca University Press.

Roots, K.; Lockhart, E.; Tasker, H. (2023) “Law, Gendered Violence, and Justice: Critically Engaging #MeToo.” in Alam, M.; Dwyer, P.; Roots, K. (eds.) Violence, Imagination and Resistance: Socio-legal Interrogations of Power. Athabasca University Press