Armed Conflict

Women's Wars Aren't Men's Wars

Dr. Cynthia Enloe

November 15, 2023

Hybrid - Ballroom A (U03-3550A Campus Center), University of Massachusetts Boston. For in-person attendance:

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The Russian Invasion of Ukraine and the Geopolitics of Gender

Dr. Cinzia Solari

October 24, 2023

Hybrid - Ballroom A (U03-3550A Campus Center), University of Massachusetts Boston

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Regions

Armed Conflict, Gender and the Rights of Nature

Keina Yoshida

March 30, 2023

Snowden Auditorium, W01-0088 Wheatley Hall & Zoom webinar

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Open-Pit Peace: The Power of Extractive Industries in Post-Conflict Transitions

Citation:

Paarlberg-Kvam, Kate. 2021.“Open-Pit Peace: The Power of Extractive Industries in Post-Conflict Transitions.” Peacebuilding 9 (3): 289-310.

Author: Kate Paarlberg-Kvam

Abstract:

Three years after the peace accord signed by the Colombian government and the country’s largest guerrilla group, the guerrillas announced a return to arms. The announcement was met with dismay, but not surprise, as the numbers of murdered ex-combatants and social leaders rise and the government’s tepid commitment to the peace process sputters and stalls. At the centre of this violence have been the extractive industries. How should peace studies make sense of the power of extractivism, often described as a key element of postconflict reconstruction around the globe? This article focuses on Colombia as a case study of the contradictions of the postliberal peace, as stated commitments to gender justice and economic redistribution are undermined by commitments to mining and biofuel profits. A decolonial feminist lens, informed by Latin American anticapitalist feminists, sheds light on these contradictions and illuminates possibilities for a transformed peace in a postneoliberal world.

Keywords: extractivism, decoloniality, peacebuilding, Colombia

Topics: Armed Conflict, Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Development, Extractive Industries, Gender Mainstreaming, Gender-Based Violence, Gendered Power Relations, Governance, Post-Conflict Governance, Peacebuilding, Security, Sexual Violence Regions: Americas, South America Countries: Colombia

Year: 2021

Non-territorial Autonomy and Gender Equality: The Case of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria – Rojava

Citation:

Rosa, Burç. 2020. "Non-territorial Autonomy and Gender Equality: The Case of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria – Rojava." Filozofija i drustvo 31 (3): 319-339.

Author: Burç Rosa

Abstract:

The Kurdish-led autonomous entity called Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (NES) - also known as Rojava - considers women’s liberation an imperative condition for shaping a democratic society. The practice of autonomy in NES shares strong resemblances with Non- Territorial Autonomy (NTA) models; however, it introduces a novelty in the role of women as active agents in building a plurinational democracy. This paper examines (1) the intellectual and political origins of the political role ascribed to women in autonomous administrations and (2) how the practice of autonomy in Rojava has advanced women’s rights by shedding light on both institutional implementation of women’s rights, as well as the creation of (non)-territorial spaces of women’s emancipation within the autonomous model. The argument made is that the conceptual framework of the Rojava model goes beyond the Kurdish question and can be considered an attempt to resolve a democratic deficit of liberal democratic nation-states through bringing together solutions that address the intertwined subordination of minorities and women.

Keywords: women, representation, plurinational democracy, non-territorial autonomy, Kurdish question, Syria, Rojava, minorities

Topics: Armed Conflict, Secessionist Wars, Democracy / Democratization, Governance, Political Participation, Rights, Women's Rights Regions: MENA, Asia, Middle East Countries: Syria

Year: 2020

Kurdish Women as Political Agents: Kurdish Political Movement, Gender Equality, and Women’s Freedom

Citation:

Çağlayan Handan. 2020. "Kurdish Women as Political Agents: Kurdish Political Movement, Gender Equality, and Women’s Freedom." In Women in the Kurdish Movement: Mothers, Comrades, Goddesses. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

Author: Handan Çağlayan

Annotation:

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkarên Kurdistan, PKK) was founded in 1978 with the goal to establish an independent socialist Kurdistan state. The party has since changed radically ideologically, politically, programmatically, and organizationally. In this process, one of the most significant axes of continuity during the PKK’s history is the principle of gender equality. The PKK’s approach to this offered opportunity spaces for women’s political participation while being simultaneously transformed through their participation. It had already included women members before becoming a political party, similar to the socialist youth organizations of the 1970s. Women, although in small numbers, participated in the PKK’s founding congress in 1978 and remained involved in its subsequent activities.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Ethnic/Communal Wars, Secessionist Wars, Political Participation Regions: MENA, Asia, Middle East

Year: 2020

“In My Eyes He Was a Man”: Poor and Working-Class Boy Soldiers in the Iran-Iraq War

Citation:

Ahmadi, Shaherzad R. 2018. "'In My Eyes He Was a Man': Poor and Working-Class Boy Soldiers in the Iran-Iraq War." Journal of Middle East Women's Studies 14 (2): 174-192.

Author: Shaherzad R. Ahmadi

Abstract:

During the Pahlavi period in Iran (1925–79), poor and working-class families were more likely to expect young sons to work to support the household. These boys, in turn, were more autonomous. Middle-class families, on the other hand, protected and controlled boys. Researchers have assumed that religious zealotry was the primary inspiration for boys to enlist in the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88) after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, ignoring the ways in which class inflected boyhood. While religious fervor may have been a motivation for some of the poor and working-class Iranian boys (between ten and fourteen) who enlisted, the expectation that they work took precedence. Moreover, at least some of these boys were eager to participate in war-front masculine homosociality rather than remain in feminized domestic spaces. This study analyzes biographies, census data, newspaper accounts, and original oral history interviews.

Keywords: Iran-Iraq War, childhood, boy soldiers, Pahlavi Iran, class

Topics: Age, Youth, Armed Conflict, Class, Combatants, Child Soldiers, Male Combatants, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries Regions: MENA, Asia, Middle East Countries: Iran

Year: 2018

The Culture of War: A Study of Women Military Nurses in Vietnam

Citation:

Scannell-Desch, Elizabeth. 2000. “The Culture of War: A Study of Women Military Nurses in Vietnam.” Journal of Transcultural Nursing 11 (2): 87–95.

Author: Elizabeth Scannell-Desch

Abstract:

Many books and studies have described the male Vietnam War culture, whereas similar literature about women is almost nonexistent. This study describes the culture of war nursing as experienced by 24 U.S. women military nurses. Data were generated using a core question and in-depth interviews. Phenomenology served as the research method, incorporating data analysis procedures of Colaizzi and Lincoln and Guba. Nine theme categories were identified to describe the culture of war nursing. Core values of the military culture were threaded throughout descriptions, and activities to make their environment more homelike embodied the positive values of their culture.

Keywords: nurses, Vietnam, Vietnam War, women

Topics: Armed Conflict, Gender, Women, Health Regions: Asia, Southeast Asia Countries: United States of America, Vietnam

Year: 2000

From Guerrilla Girls to Zainabs: Reassessing the Figure of the “Militant Woman” in the Iranian Revolution

Citation:

Gordan, Arielle. 2021. "From Guerilla Girls to Zainabs: Reassessing the Figure of the "Militant Woman" in the Iranian Revolution." Journal of Middle East Women's Studies 17 (1): 64-95.

Author: Arielle Gordon

Abstract:

Scholars have long accounted for representations of women in the Iranian Revolution by categorically classifying them as “devout mothers” or “heroic sisters,” embodied respectively in the Shiʾi archetypes of Fatima and Zainab. However, a closer look at images of militant women finds them residing within the traditions of their time, as part and parcel of an era of liberation movements in which the idiom of the female fighter featured prominently. This article takes a transnational look at tropes of women’s militancy and traces how they filtered into Iranian revolutionary culture. Finally, it contends that only with the consolidation of Khomeini’s power and the start of the Iran-Iraq War is this figure renamed Zainab and sustained as a central icon of the Islamic Republic.

Keywords: visual culture, revolution, transnationalism, representation, 'gender'

Topics: Armed Conflict, National Liberation Wars, Combatants, Female Combatants, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militarism, Religion Regions: MENA, Asia, Middle East Countries: Iran, Iraq

Year: 2021

Las Violencias Sexuadas de La Guerra Civil Española: Paradigma Para Una Lectura Cultural Del Conflicto

Citation:

Joly, Maud. 2008. “Las Violencias Sexuadas de La Guerra Civil Española: Paradigma Para Una Lectura Cultural Del Conflicto.” Historia Social, no. 61 (2008): 89–107.

Author: Maud Joly

Abstract:

SPANISH ABSTRACT:

El artículo propone una lectura cultural de la Guerra Civil que tenga como objeto de estudio las violencias sexuadas dirigidas contra las mujeres republicanas. Esta aproximación se inscribe en la voluntad de superar los límites cronológicos y epistemológicos de la interpretación histórica del conflicto. Tras hacer un balance historiográfico, la reflexión se dirige a las modalidades, significados y genealogía del "saqueo del cuerpo" perpetrado durante la Guerra Civil. Más adelante se analiza la dimensión pública, espectacular y escatològica de las violencias sexuadas, entra la sumisión y la reconquista de la retaguardia. Por último, la aproximación cultural del fenómeno guerrero invita a reflexionar sobre las experiencias femeninas de la violencia de guerra.

 

ENGLISH ABSTRACT:

The article puts forward a cultural interpretation of the Civil War which covers the aspects of sexed violence suffered by Republican women. This approach arises through the wish to go beyond the chronological and epistemological limits of the historical interpretation of the conflict. After making a historiographie appraisal, the reflection goes on to tackle the modalities, meanings and genealogy of the "body looting" perpetrated during the Civil War. Then an analysis is made of the spectacular and eschatological public dimension of sexed violence, with the submission and the reconquest of the rearguard. Lastly, the cultural approach of the warrior phenomenon leads readers to a reflection on the female experiences of war violence.

Keywords: Spanish Civil War, Spain, conflict-related sexual violence, conflict-related sexual violence against women, rape

Topics: Armed Conflict, Civil Wars, Gender-Based Violence, Sexual Violence, Male Perpetrators, SV against Women Regions: Europe, Western Europe Countries: Spain

Year: 2008

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