The Social Imaginaries of Women’s Peace Activism in Northern Uganda

Citation:

Chigudu, Simukai. 2016. “The Social Imaginaries of Women’s Peace Activism in Northern Uganda.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 18 (1): 19–38. doi:10.1080/14616742.2015.1105588.

Author: Simukai Chigudu

Abstract:

The metanarrative of global feminism is often constructed as a progressive and emancipatory movement emanating from the West and fostering radical politics elsewhere in the world. Such a view is not only ethnocentric but, critically, it fails to engage with the complex ways in which feminist politics travel and are evinced in specific localities. In this article, I seek to understand how marginalized women in the “Global South” – particularly in Africa – interpret, experience and negotiate feminist ideas to wield political power within the context of their social and moral worlds. I focus on women's organized resistance to violence and armed conflict, known as “women's peace activism.” Using a case study of a women's peace movement in Uganda mediated by an international feminist organization called Isis Women's International Cross-Cultural Exchange, I conducted in-depth qualitative interviews with a wide range of activists in the organization and in its network in postconflict areas in Northern Uganda. I argue that the feminist peace discourse is most meaningful when its universal values of equity and securing the dignity of women are appropriated and re-signified through the cultural institutions and the collective memory of activists in their local settings.

Keywords: feminism, violence and peacebuilding, transnational politics, Uganda, social imaginaries

Topics: Armed Conflict, Civil Society, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Peacebuilding, Political Participation Regions: Africa, East Africa Countries: Uganda

Year: 2016