Kristina Hook is a scholar-practitioner specializing in genocide and mass atrocity prevention. She is a graduate of the Ph.D. in Peace Studies and Anthropology program (administered by the Keough School’s Kroc Institute of International Peace Studies) and an expert on the Russia-Ukraine war. Hook is professor of conflict management at Kennesaw State University’s School of Conflict Management, Peacebuilding, and Development.
In this conversation, she discusses her education at the Keough School and how it prepared her for a policy-relevant career working to understand and prevent atrocities, including what she has learned from her extensive study of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
You worked in policy before completing your doctorate. Talk about your background and what drew you to the University of Notre Dame.
I came to Notre Dame directly from my job working at the U.S. Department of State. I had been working there as a policy advisor for the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, which over the years has become an important partner for the Keough School, providing experiential learning opportunities for both undergraduate and graduate students and participating in important policy discussions.
I was drawn to Notre Dame because of my experiences working in government on genocide and mass atrocity prevention. As a policy advisor, you are tasked with making decisions so quickly. I wanted to take a step back from that to think more deeply about the larger questions of what causes mass atrocities in order to do that kind of work better.
How did your education shape your perspective and prepare you for your work?
I received a top-notch education at the Keough School. I’m grateful every day for the research skills and the education that I received during my doctoral work. I benefited immensely from working with faculty members like Ernesto Verdeja, an expert on the causes and prevention of genocide and mass atrocities, and Rahul Oka, an economic anthropologist. They became my co-advisers and I’m fortunate to say they remain important colleagues today. George A. Lopez, a Keough School expert on economic sanctions and peacebuilding, was also very influential, along with Vania Smith-Oka, a cultural and medical anthropologist who was on my doctoral committee.
One thing that I’ve come to recognize in hindsight is the analytic and normative value of all the discussions we would have in class about the ethical considerations around atrocity prevention. Having this time to talk very substantively and in these very nuanced areas about ethics has been a lifeline for me as I research a community of Ukrainians that I care very much about, one that has experienced such horrific genocidal violence.
My job has always been about bringing together research that matters for policy decision-making.
After I earned my doctoral degree I transitioned into a new role as the inaugural executive director of the Better Evidence Project at George Mason University’s Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution. A year later, I started my current job as a tenure-track assistant professor at Kennesaw State.
My job has always been about bringing together research that matters for policy decision-making that can make a difference beyond the academy. I work primarily with Ph.D students, which is satisfying for me because a lot of our students are also interested in that policy-research nexus.
And your work has a real policy impact. Talk about that.
Yes, I have continued doing policy-relevant work as a professor. Much of it focuses on Ukrainian identity, Russian ideologies of violence, Russian intentions in Ukraine and the victims of war crimes and atrocities. It is very much tied into ongoing policy processes and decision-making. Maintaining that policy-relevant focus is really important to me because policies, systems and structures are critical tools for making real change happen.
My work has been cited in the International Court of Justice for Russia and Ukraine, the European Parliament, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe as well as NATO and others. I’ve had the opportunity to write peer-reviewed articles on my work and share my expertise to broader audiences through venues like Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, CNN, USA Today, the Washington Post and others. A year ago, I served as the principal author of an independent legal inquiry into the the question of a Russian genocide in Ukraine by the New Lines Institute in Washington and the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights in Montreal.
When we look at this war of aggression, we see extensive environmental damage.
Recently, I testified along with two other experts before the bipartisan Helsinki Commission, which includes representatives from the U.S. House, Senate and executive branch. Our testimony covered the immense and ongoing environmental damage that has resulted from Russia’s war in Ukraine. When I refer to the war I don’t just mean the full-scale invasion that began in February 2022. We look further back to 2014, when Russia invaded and occupied the Crimean Peninsula and sparked armed conflict through proxy forces in eastern Ukraine, ushering in a host of environmental issues that I began researching while I was a Ph.D. student at Notre Dame.
When we look back at this longer war of aggression, we see extensive environmental damage from landmines, toxic chemicals, heavy metals and fires. We see the poisoning of soils on hundreds of thousands of square miles of farmland, and we see significant groundwater contamination.
All of this is the result of conflict and it has a profound effect on human health and wellbeing. We also see significant evidence that suggests that Russian forces willfully inflict environmental damage, such as the destruction of the Kakhova Dam, as a part of their war strategy. So it was important for us to share that testimony with influential institutions like the Helsinki Commission. By documenting what has happened and why, we can work towards restitution and recovery, while working to stop the environmental harm that continues to happen every day
It sounds like this work is ongoing.
Very much so. I currently hold a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, which supports my full-time research on my forthcoming book on historical violence in the Moscow-Ukraine relationship and how this shapes Ukrainian decision-making today (both before and during the war).
I’m grateful for funding from the National Science Foundation, Fulbright, USAID, and the Department of Defense that has supported this work, including my ongoing fieldwork in Ukraine
It’s very important for us to do anything we can to prevent this from happening again.
When I came to Notre Dame, I wanted to study the Holodomor (“killing by hunger”), an infamous artificial famine induced by Joseph Stalin that killed at least four million Ukrainians from 1932-1933. I was particularly interested in speaking with Ukrainian national leaders across politics, law, academia, and civil society — professional groups that often interact with topics of genocide on the Holodomor’s legacy in Ukraine against the backdrop of armed conflict.
Over the past 10 years, I’ve spent nearly three years in Ukraine conducting fieldwork and capturing interviews with these influential voices. I have greatly admired how resilient Ukrainian society has shown itself to be during Russia’s ongoing onslaught. Facing the hard history of the Holodomor is part of this. We have this historical record of Moscow claiming the lives of millions of Ukrainians, and it’s very important for us to do anything we can to prevent this from happening again.
Watch the Helsinki Commission Briefing
This briefing highlighted the scope and scale of the environmental devastation Russia has caused in its war against Ukraine, estimated the still-unfolding impacts on the people of Ukraine and its natural environment and considered the multifaceted challenges to ensuring Russian accountability.
Keough School alum Kristina Hook testified alongside fellow experts Eugene Z. Stakhiv, a retired lecturer for Johns Hopkins University and Maryna Baydyuk, president and executive director of United Help Ukraine.
Originally published Aug. 28 on keough.nd.edu.