Russian Federation

Citation:

Hamilton, Caitlin, Pagot Rhaíssa, and Laura J Shepherd. 2021. “BRICS Countries and the Construction of Conflict in the Women, Peace and Security Open Debates.” International Affairs 97 (3): 739–57.

Authors: Caitlin Hamilton, Pagot Rhaíssa, Laura J Shepherd

Abstract:

The Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda is a diverse field of practice comprised of numerous actors, activities and artefacts. Conventional accounts of WPS development and implementation tend to reproduce a narrative that positions states located in the global North as ‘providers’ of WPS, and those in the South as ‘recipients’. This assumption in turn prescribes, and proscribes, forms of WPS engagement and has a constitutive effect on the agenda itself, as shown by post- and de-colonial analyses of the WPS agenda. This article seeks to explore the WPS practices of a group of states that in many ways challenge these North/South and provider/recipient binaries by explicitly positioning themselves as operating beyond and across them: the BRICS countries, comprised of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. In this article, we explore how constructions of conflict within the WPS practices of BRICS states relate to the acknowledgement of, and commitment to, the agenda more broadly. We ultimately argue that the BRICS' commitment to the WPS agenda is driven more by identity-making geopolitical considerations, including geostrategic interests, than a politics of peace.

Topics: Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Peace and Security, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS Regions: Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa, Americas, South America, Asia, South Asia, Europe Countries: Brazil, China, India, Russian Federation, South Africa

Year: 2021

Citation:

Scicchitano, Dominic. 2019. “The "Real" Chechen Man: Conceptions of Religion, Nature, and Gender and the Persecution of Sexual Minorities in Postwar Chechnya.” Journal of Homosexuality. doi:10.1080/00918369.2019.1701336.

Author: Dominic Scicchitano

Abstract:

In March of 2017, the Russian LGBT Network received their first reports of police violence against individuals in Chechnya because of their perceived sexual orientation. In the following months, news spread of a campaign of forced disappearances and torture specifically targeting suspected homosexual men. Between December, 2018 and February, 2019, police carried out another wave of unlawful detentions of men on the basis of their sexual orientation. The reports of unlawful detentions and extrajudicial killings of queer men may seem surreal in a world that has slowly grown more progressive with regard to LGBT rights issues. And yet, this violence is the reality faced by gay and bisexual men in Chechnya under Ramzan Kadyrov, the hypermasculine Chechen leader. This paper explores the ways in which religious practice, imaginations of nature, and conceptions of gender have influenced Chechnya’s current anti-LGBT climate.

Keywords: Chechnya, caucasus, LGBTQ+, antigay violence, unlawful detentions, religious fundamentalism, masculinities, gendered nature

Topics: Gender, Men, Masculinity/ies, Governance, Post-Conflict Governance, LGBTQ, Male Victims, Post-Conflict, Religion, Sexuality, Violence Regions: Asia, Europe Countries: Russian Federation

Year: 2019

Citation:

Lazarev, Egor. 2019. "Laws in Conflict: Legacies of War, Gender, and Legal Pluralism in Chechnya." World Politics 71 (4): 667-709.

Author: Egor Lazarev

Abstract:

How do legacies of conflict affect choices between state and nonstate legal institutions? This article studies this question in Chechnya, where state law coexists with Sharia and customary law. The author focuses on the effect of conflict-induced disruption of gender hierarchies because the dominant interpretations of religious and customary norms are discriminatory against women. The author finds that women in Chechnya are more likely than men to rely on state law and that this gender gap in legal preferences and behavior is especially large in more-victimized communities. The author infers from this finding that the conflict created the conditions for women in Chechnya to pursue their interests through state law—albeit not without resistance. Women’s legal mobilization has generated a backlash from the Chechen government, which has attempted to reinstate a patriarchal order. The author concludes that conflict may induce legal mobilization among the weak and that gender may become a central cleavage during state-building processes in postconflict environments.

Topics: Conflict, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Gender Hierarchies, Justice, Post-Conflict, Religion Regions: Asia, Europe Countries: Russian Federation

Year: 2019

Citation:

Dellios, Rosita, Arundhati Bhattacharyya, and Cindy Minarova-Banjac. 2019. “Ecofeminism in a World of BRICS: Opportunities and Challenges.” Culture Mandala 13 (2): 1-18.

Authors: Rosita Dellios, Arundhati Bhattacharyya, Cindy Minarova-Banjac

Abstract:

While feminism and environmentalism have long and illustrious histories in the annals of social movements, together they are less well recognised or understood beyond the academic community. Far from being an eclectic intersection of interests between women and the environment, ‘ecofeminism’ holds a wider significance for integrative sustainable development in the coming decades. This is especially so when viewed from the Global South and its ‘rising powers’, three of which – China, India and Brazil – form case studies in this article. Will the developing world, in the course of its development and especially under China’s influence, advance or squander the opportunity for an ecofeminist contribution to a better world order? Policy implications derived from this study call for a cross-sector approach that includes culture and religion. These challenge the limitations of binary thinking and promote interconnectedness.

Keywords: ecofeminism, sustainable development, culture, global south, BRICS

Topics: Development, Environment, Feminisms, Ecofeminism Regions: Africa, Southern Africa, Americas, South America, Asia, East Asia, South Asia, Europe Countries: Brazil, China, India, Russian Federation, South Africa

Year: 2019

Citation:

Sanford, Victoria, Katerina  Stefatos, and Cecila M. Salvi. 2016. Gender Violence in Peace and War: States of Complicity. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

Authors: Victoria Sanford, Katerina Stefatos, Cecila M. Salvi

Annotation:

Topics: Conflict, Domestic Violence, Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Gender Mainstreaming, Peace and Security, Peace Processes, Sexual Violence Regions: Americas, Central America, Asia, Southeast Asia, Europe Countries: Guatemala, Indonesia, Ireland, Russian Federation

Year: 2016

Citation:

Mathers, Jennifer G. 2020. “Women, War and Austerity: IFIs and the Construction of Gendered Economic Insecurities in Ukraine.” Review of International Political Economy, April, 1–22. doi: 10.1080/09692290.2020.1725903.

Author: Jennifer G. Mathers

Abstract:

This paper analyses the gendered circuits of violence that create and sustain economic insecurity in Ukraine. Drawing on feminist political economy analysis of the dependence of structural adjustment programmes on women’s labor, and feminist security studies critical analysis of the negative effects of militaries on human security, the paper shows how IFI-imposed austerity measures in Ukraine are inextricable from processes of militarization. While the gendered impacts of each of these distinct processes have been explored, this paper empirically demonstrates how IFI loan conditionalities and militarization intensify and reinforce one another precisely through the burdens they place on households and especially on women in the context of conflict.

Keywords: Ukraine, global financial crisis, international financial institutions, gender, conflict, security, russia

Topics: Economies, Feminist Economics, Conflict, Feminisms, Feminist Political Economy, Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Households, International Financial Institutions, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries, Militarization, Livelihoods, Militarized Livelihoods, Security, Violence Regions: Asia, Europe, Eastern Europe Countries: Russian Federation, Ukraine

Year: 2020

Citation:

Eichler, Maya. 2012. Militarizing Men: Gender, Conscription, and War in Post-Soviet Russia. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. 

Author: Maya Eichler

Annotation:

A state's ability to maintain mandatory conscription and wage war rests on the idea that a "real man" is one who has served in the military. Yet masculinity has no inherent ties to militarism. The link between men and the military, argues Maya Eichler, must be produced and reproduced in order to fill the ranks, engage in combat, and mobilize the population behind war. In the context of Russia's post-communist transition and the Chechen wars, men's militarization has been challenged and reinforced. Eichler uncovers the challenges by exploring widespread draft evasion and desertion, anti-draft and anti-war activism led by soldiers' mothers, and the general lack of popular support for the Chechen wars. However, the book also identifies channels through which militarized gender identities have been reproduced. Eichler's empirical and theoretical study of masculinities in international relations applies for the first time the concept of "militarized masculinity," developed by feminist IR scholars, to the case of Russia.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Gender, Men, Masculinity/ies, Gender Roles, Gender Analysis, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries, Nationalism Regions: Asia, Europe Countries: Russian Federation

Year: 2012

Citation:

Dunn, Kevin C. 2014. “Pussy Rioting.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 16 (2): 317–34. doi:10.1080/14616742.2014.919103.

Author: Kevin C. Dunn

Abstract:

This essay explores the evolution of the Riot Grrrl movement. A feminist punk movement that profoundly impacted popular culture in the West during the 1990s, Riot Grrrl is generally regarded as an important but short-lived phenomenon. This paper explores the political relevance of Riot Grrrl within both feminism and popular culture, but also debunks the myth that Riot Grrrl faded away by the turn of the century. Exploring specific cases in Russia and Indonesia, the paper illustrates the ways in which Riot Grrrl has become a global movement and remains active today, influencing people's subjectivity and agency, helping transform people from passive consumers to active feminist cultural producers.

Keywords: popular music, punk, feminism, russia, Indonesia, Riot Grrrl

Topics: Civil Society, Feminisms, Gender, Political Participation Regions: Asia, Southeast Asia, Europe Countries: Indonesia, Russian Federation

Year: 2014