Draft:Leigh Payne

Leigh A. Payne

Leigh A. Payne is a Professor of Sociology and Latin American Studies at St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford.

Biography

Daughter to Donald Payne and Adrah Payne, Payne was born on 31 July 1956 in Seoul, Korea, and spent most of her childhood in the United States, in Palo Alto (California), Bloomington (Indiana), and Pennington (New Jersey). She did her undergraduate studies and a master’s in Latin American Studies at New York University, and later obtained her PhD in Political Science from Yale University.

Payne was a Faculty Fellow at the Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies, University of Notre Dame (1990) and a Lecturer at Yale University (1990-1991). She received her tenure at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1998 and was director of the Global Studies Program in that same university (1999-2002). In 2009 she became a Professor at Oxford University’s Sociology Department and Latin American Center (LAC) . She is also a fellow of St. Antony’s College and part of its governing body, at Oxford, and an Associate academic at the Institute for Integrated Transitions’ (IFIT) Law and Peace Practice Group .

Contribution

Payne has authored and co-authored numerous books and articles on human rights and transitional justice. Some of her key publications include "The Right against Rights in Latin America" (Oxford University Press, 2023), which she co-edited with Julia Zulver and Simón Escoffier, "Amnesty in the Age of Human Rights Accountability: Comparative and International Perspectives" (Cambridge University Press, 2012), which she co-edited with Francesca Lessa, "Accounting for Violence: The Memory Market in Latin America" (Duke University Press, 2011), which she co-edited with Ksenija Bilbija, and "Uncivil Movements: The Armed Right-Wing and Democracy in Latin America" (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000).

In addition to her academic work, Payne has also been involved in various human rights and transitional justice initiatives. She has served as a consultant for international organizations such as the United Nations Development Programme and the Inter-American Development Bank, and has conducted research on transitional justice processes in Latin America.

Payne's contributions to the field of political sociology and human rights have been widely recognized. In 2007, she was awarded the Franklin Center Book Award for her book "Unsettling Accounts: Neither Truth Nor Reconciliation in Confessions of State Violence" (Duke University Press).

Overall, Leigh A. Payne's research has made significant contributions to our understanding of human rights, transitional justice, and civil society in Latin America and beyond.

Selected books

2023. The Right Against Rights in Latin America. Oxford: Oxford University Press (co-edited with Julia Zulver and Simón Escoffier).

2020. Transitional Justice and Corporate Accountability from Below: Deploying Archimedes' Lever. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press (co-authored with Gabriel Pereira and Laura Bernal-Bermúdez).

2018. El Resurgir del Pasado en España: Fosas de Víctimas y Confesiones de Verdugos. Madrid: Taurus.

2016. Revealing New Truths about Spain's Violent Past: Perpetrators' Confessions and Victim Exhumations. London: Palgrave-Macmillan (co-authored with Paloma Aguilar).

2012. Amnesty in the Age of Human Rights Accountability: Comparative and International Perspectives. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press (co-edited with Francesca Lessa).

2011. Accounting for Violence: The Memory Market in Latin America. Durham, NC: Duke University Press (co-edited with Ksenija Bilbija).

2010. Transitional Justice in Balance: Comparing Processes, Weighing Efficacy. Washington, DC: United States Institute for Peace (co-authored with Tricia D. Olsen and Andrew G. Reiter).

2008. Unsettling Accounts: Neither Truth Nor Reconciliation in Confessions of State Violence. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

2005. The Art of Truth-Telling about Authoritarian Rule. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press (co-edited with Ksenija Bilbija, Jo Ellen Fair and Cynthia Milton).

2000. Uncivil Movements: The Armed Right-Wing and Democracy in Latin America. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

1995. Business and Democracy in Latin America. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press (co-edited with Ernest Bartell).

1994. Brazilian Industrialists and Democratic Change. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.