Democratic Republic of the Congo

Citation:

Martin de Almagro, Maria. 2017. "Producing Participants: Gender, Race, Class, and Women, Peace and Security." Global Society. doi: 10.1080/13600826.2017.1380610.

Author: Maria Martin de Almagro

Abstract:

Recent efforts to implement the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda and the creation of National Action Plans (NAPs) in post-conflict countries have resulted in a set of international policy discourses and practices on gender, peace and security. Critics have challenged the WPS agenda for its focus on “adding women and stir” and its failure to be transformative. This article contributes to this debate by showing that the implementation of the WPS agenda is not only about adding women, but also about gendering in racialised, sexualised and classed ways. Drawing on poststructuralist and postcolonial feminist theory and on extensive fieldwork in post-conflict contexts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Burundi and Liberia, the article examines the subject position of the woman participant. I demonstrate how NAPs normalise certain subject positions in the Global South while rendering invisible and troubling others, contributing to (re)producing certain forms of normativity and hierarchy through a powerful set of policy practices. Deconstructing such processes of discursive inclusion and exclusion of troubled representations is essential as it allows for the identification of sites of contestation and offers a better understanding of the everyday needs and experiences of those the WPS agenda regulates.

Topics: Class, Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Gender, Women, Gender Balance, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Hierarchies, Peace and Security, Peacebuilding, Post-Conflict, Race, Rights, Women's Rights, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS Regions: Africa, Central Africa, East Africa, West Africa Countries: Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia

Year: 2017

Citation:

Holmes, Georgina. 2014. Women and War in Rwanda: Gender, Media and the Representation of Genocide. International Library of African Studies 39. London; New York: IBTauris.

Author: Georgina Holmes

Annotation:

"Georgina Holmes argues that the media represents a site within which political and military actors can influence narratives about war and genocide, and breaks new ground in analyzing the role of gender in the conflict. This book is essential reading on the gendered dynamics of conflict and genocide in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo." (Summary from WorldCat)

Topics: Gender, Women, Genocide, Media Regions: Africa, Central Africa, East Africa Countries: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda

Year: 2014

Citation:

Cuvelier, Jeroen. 2017. “Money, Migration, and Masculinity among Artisanal Miners in Katanga (DR Congo).” Review of African Political Economy 44 (152): 204–19. doi:10.1080/03056244.2016.1172061.

Author: Jeroen Cuvelier

Abstract:

The Katangese artisanal mining sector has grown spectacularly since the late 1990s. Faced with political instability and economic crisis, tens of thousands of men have moved to the mining areas in order to find new sources of income. This article offers a detailed ethnographic description of how male migrant workers experience and cope with the challenging realities of life on the mines against the backdrop of recent changes in Katanga’s political economy. More specifically, it examines the relationship between money, migration and masculinity through an extended case study of a money dispute among a group of artisanal miners working in the Kalabi mine near Lwambo, a small town situated 20 kilometres north of Likasi. It is found that the conspicuous consumption of money plays a vital role in the mining subculture; that credit and debt dominate life on the mines; and that artisanal mining has given rise to significant changes in gender relations and household organisation.

Keywords: artisanal and small-scale mining, Gender, Democratic Republic of Congo, informal economy, subculture, monetary practices, extended case method

Topics: Migration, Extractive Industries, Gender, Men, Masculinity/ies, Gendered Power Relations, Households, Political Economies Regions: Africa, Central Africa Countries: Democratic Republic of the Congo

Year: 2017

Citation:

Author: Jeroen Cuvelier

Abstract:

This article, based on 16 months of anthropological fieldwork between 2005 and 2012, examines the relationship between work and masculinity among artisanal miners, or creuseurs, in Katanga, the southeastern province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It argues that men’s involvement in artisanal mining should be considered not only as an economic survival strategy but also as an attempt to experiment with new ways of being a man in a context of economic crisis and changing gender relations. Furthermore, the article criticizes the tendency to downplay or underestimate the complexity and diversity of processes of masculine identity construction in Africa’s artisanal-mining areas. In order to do justice to the intricacy of these processes, the article proposes using concepts and insights from the field of masculinity studies and distinguishing between a levelling and a differentiating trend in artisanal miners’ masculinity practices.

Keywords: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Katanga, artisanal mining, social change, gender roles, masculinity

Topics: Economies, Extractive Industries, Gender, Masculinity/ies, Gender Roles, Gendered Power Relations Regions: Africa, Central Africa Countries: Democratic Republic of the Congo

Year: 2014

Citation:

Authors: Julia Hartviksen, Rebecca Tiessen

Topics: Extractive Industries, Gender, Women Regions: Africa, Central Africa, Americas, North America Countries: Canada, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Year: 2017

Citation:

Authors: Beth J. Maclin, Jocelyn T.D. Kelly, Rachel Perks, Patrick Vinck, Phuong Pham

Abstract:

Artisanal and small scale mining (ASM) sites in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) present livelihoods opportunities within an evolving security situation, thus offering the potential for economic and physical security. This paper presents survey data detailing reasons why men and women in eastern DRC migrate to ASM sites, with a specific focus on the extent to which insecurity wrought by the DRC's decades long conflict influences individuals’ migration decisions. It draws from research performed under a World Bank- Harvard Humanitarian Initiative research project. Following the literature review on decision-making related to ASM and migration and its applicability to the research context of eastern DRC, the article first presents basic demographics of the 998 men and women surveyed. It then details participants’ specific motivations for migration and groups them as push or pull factors. Finally, the article looks at the relationship between migration and the relevant migration and security variables separately before creating a multiple regression model to see how these variables inform migration decisions collectively. Participants largely migrated to ASM sites for the purpose of seeking money and/or employment. Security – specifically the presence of an armed group at one's reception site – also informed migration decision making, yet it did not negate the role of economic factors. This is the first paper the authors know of that examines gender-specific motivations for migration to ASM sites as well as how insecurity influences decisions to migrate to ASM sites.

Keywords: mining, migration, DRC, conflict, insecurity

Topics: Armed Conflict, Displacement & Migration, Migration, Extractive Industries, Gender, Women, Men, Livelihoods, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Security Regions: Africa, Central Africa Countries: Democratic Republic of the Congo

Year: 2017

Citation:

Authors: Siri Aas Rustad, Gudrun Østby, Ragnhild Nordås

Abstract:

The natural resource abundance of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has featured in policy debates as the prime example of ‘conflict minerals’ driving conflict-related sexual violence. This narrative has dominated how the conflict in the eastern part of the country has been portrayed in the media and by high-level policy-makers. Despite increased attention to research on mining and gender, systematic analyses of the links between mining, conflict, and sexual violence are scarce. This paper contributes to filling this gap by exploring how artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) and sexual violence are related in Eastern DRC. We combine new subnational data on the geographical location of ASM sites with detailed survey data from the 2013/2014 Demographic and Health survey of women aged 15–49 on their exposure to sexual violence committed by their intimate partners and by others (non-partners). The results indicate that women living in close proximity to ASM are indeed more likely to experience sexual violence of both types, although the effect is stronger for non-partner sexual violence. In the Kivus and Maniema, the risk of experiencing non-partner sexual is particularly high for women that live close to a mine with the presence of an armed actor.

Keywords: armed conflict, ASM, Democratic Republic of the Congo, sexual violence, Mineral mining

Topics: Armed Conflict, Extractive Industries, Gender, Women, Sexual Violence, SV against Women Regions: Africa, Central Africa Countries: Democratic Republic of the Congo

Year: 2016

Citation:

Authors: Chris Huggins, Doris Buss, Blair Rutherford

Abstract:

Sites of artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) in sub-Saharan Africa are often places of contestation and dispossession, particularly because mining laws and policies have generally been crafted to foster large-scale mining. This paper builds on research mapping the multiple ways in which ASM is associated with various wrongs – criminality, illegality, immorality, destructiveness - to consider how various, complex gendered relations and place-making practices within mine sites are occluded as a result. We consider these erasures in the context of ASM formalization efforts linked to particular state visions. We note that while negative perceptions of ASM persist, governments, donors and mining companies are increasingly engaging in different forms of negotiation with ASM representatives, particularly through establishing legal ‘ASM zones’ and encouraging or mandating artisanal miners to form associations or cooperatives: processes of formalization. With reference to African case studies, we outline potential issues and challenges in efforts to formalize ASM, while offering insights into how the politics of place-making inform these initiatives. Focusing in particular on the gendering of both the dominant place-making of ASM by policy-makers and regulators and the actual emplaced practices of ASM activities in specific mining sites we highlight the multiple, at times competing and other times overlapping, visions of space at work in this widespread economic activity.

Topics: Economies, Extractive Industries, Feminisms, Gender, Gender Analysis Regions: Africa, Central Africa, East Africa Countries: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya

Year: 2017

Citation:

True, Jacqui. 2012. “Rebuilding With or Without Women?: Gendered Violence in Postconflict Peace and Reconstruction” In The Political Economy of Violence Against Women. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Author: Jacqui True

Abstract:

Chapter 8 examines the spike of sexual and gender-based violence in postconflict and peace-building environments. Despite recent UN Security Council resolutions, the invisibility of this violence against women during and after conflict marginalizes women in postconflict state-building and economic reconstruction processes. This economic and political marginalization of women exacerbates violence after conflict and hinders these peace-building efforts. The first part of the chapter applies the political economy approach of the book to reveal how gendered peacekeeping economies exacerbate violence against women. It critiques the prioritization of law and order over social and economic opportunities. The second part examines the role of women in peace-building decision making and economic reconstruction in places as diverse as East Timor; Aceh, Indonesia; Mindanao province in the Philippines; Iraq; Afghanistan; Colombia; Guatemala; the Congo; and Darfur. The chapter concludes by critically assessing two approaches to postconflict prevention of violence against women: the “good practice” of placing women peacekeepers in postconflict zones and the role of reparations in ensuring women's equal access to postconflict development.

Keywords: post conflict, peacekeeping economies, reparations, peacebuilding, economic reconstruction

Topics: Armed Conflict, Development, Economies, Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Peacebuilding, Peacekeeping, Peace Processes, Political Economies, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, Violence Regions: Africa, MENA, Central Africa, East Africa, Americas, Central America, South America, Asia, Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Oceania Countries: Afghanistan, Colombia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guatemala, Indonesia, Iraq, Philippines, Sudan, Timor-Leste

Year: 2012

Citation:

Hewitt, Sarah. 2016. “Overcoming the Gender Gap: The Possibilities of Alignment between the Responsibility to Protect and the Women, Peace and Security Agenda.” Global Responsibility to Protect 8 (1): 3–28. doi:10.1163/1875984X-00801002.

Author: Sarah Hewitt

Abstract:

This article examines the relationship between the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). R2P remains ‘gender-blind’, inadequately addressing gender issues encompassed within the WPS agenda. Currently, women are limited by gendered structural inequalities and marginalisation in conflict, where the WPS agenda has failed to be incorporated in R2P and broader conflict mechanisms. I argue that the WPS agenda and R2P are mutually beneficial and complementary in their protection mandates to enable lasting peace. I identify three common intersecting commitments of these two normative frameworks to provide a more holistic, gender-sensitive approach to conflict. These are prevention and early warning systems, protection and gender-sensitive peacekeeping, and women’s participation in peace processes. I conclude that identifying common areas of engagement could potentially effect positive changes for women and men on the ground in conflict prevention and protection, and post-conflict reconstruction.

Keywords: responsibility to protect, UNSC Res. 1325, gender-sensitive indicators, women's participation, peace processes, Women Peace and Security agenda

Topics: Armed Conflict, Gender, Gender Analysis, International Law, International Human Rights, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, UNSCR 1325 Countries: Colombia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Solomon Islands

Year: 2016