Balkans

Agents of Change? Gender Advisors in NATO Militaries

Citation:

Bastick, Megan, and Claire Duncanson. 2018. "Agents of Change? Gender Advisors in NATO Militaries." International Peacekeeping 25 (4): 554-77.

Authors: Megan Bastick, Claire Duncanson

Abstract:

This paper is about the experiences of Gender Advisors in NATO and partner militaries, and the question of whether militaries can contribute to a feminist vision of peace and security. Gender Advisors are increasingly being adopted as a mechanism to help militaries to implement commitments under the Women, Peace and Security agenda. Based on semi-structured interviews and a workshop with individuals working as Military Gender Advisors from 2009 to 2016 in Afghanistan, Kosovo and in NATO and national military commands and headquarters, this paper explores their own perceptions of their work, its goals, shortcomings and achievements. It highlights Military Gender Advisors’ strong commitment to Women, Peace and Security aims, but the resistance their work faces within their institutions, and challenges of inadequate resourcing, preparation and contextual knowledge. Military Gender Advisors’ experiences paint a picture of NATO and partner Militaries having in some places made progress in protection and empowerment of local women, but fragile and partial. These findings speak to wider debates within feminist security studies around whether and how militaries achieve human security in peacekeeping operations, and the risks of militarization of the Women, Peace and Security agenda.

Topics: Feminisms, Gender, Women, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries, Peacekeeping, Peace and Security, Security, Human Security Regions: Asia, South Asia, Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Afghanistan, Kosovo

Year: 2018

Sustainable Transitions to Peace Need Women's Groups and Feminists: Questioning Donor Interventions in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Citation:

Isaković, Nela Porobić, and Gorana Mlinarević. 2019. "Sustainable Transitions to Peace Need Women's Groups and Feminists: Questioning Donor Interventions in Bosnia and Herzegovina." Journal of International Affairs 72 (2): 173-90.

Authors: Nela Porobíc Isaković, Gorona Mlinarević

Abstract:

This paper argues that women’s groups and feminists should be engaged, supported, and integrated into peacebuilding processes to ensure a sustainable and just transition from war to peace. By reflecting on the experiences of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the country’s post-conflict reconstruction and recovery processes, which took on a neoliberal character, the article shows how international politics within the framework of peacebuilding and development were exclusionary in their understanding of gendered experiences of war. At the same time, international politics intervened in a post-war conceptualization of gender equality. By analyzing the interventions, the paper argues that the failure to recognize the importance of addressing gendered experiences of war, as well as patriarchal and structural inequalities, immediately within the peace process and as an integral part of post-conflict recovery strategies, has impaired the building of a sustainable peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina. We argue that the sustainability and quality of the peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina would have benefited from interventions that engaged, supported, and integrated a grassroots feminist movement. A grassroots feminist movement that puts patriarchal and structural inequalities at the center would have been able to formulate contextualized strategies in response to the challenges that are posed before a country coming out of war.

Keywords: gender equality, feminism, women's rights, nongovernmental organizations, peace negotiation, peace treaties, peacemaking

Topics: Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Gender Equality/Inequality, NGOs, Peacebuilding, Peace Processes, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina

Year: 2019

Women’s Work and the Growth of the Civil Society in Post-War Bosnia

Citation:

Simmons, Cynthia. 2007. “Women’s Work and the Growth of the Civil Society in Post-War Bosnia.” Nationalities Papers 35 (1): 171-85.

Author: Cynthia Simmons

Abstract:

Civil society, to the extent that it exists today in Bosnia, has developed alongside the recasting of women’s roles in public life. Researchers equate civil society in Bosnia today almost exclusively with non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The early post-war NGOs grew out of the peace movement that took shape before and during the open conflict of 1992–1995. Peace organizations evolved to a large extent from feminist organizing and organizations in the Yugoslav republics of Croatia, Serbia, and Slovenia. Thus, to study the origins of Bosnian civil society, we must begin with the struggle for equal rights for women in modern Yugoslavia.

Topics: Civil Society, Feminisms, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, NGOs, Post-Conflict, Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Europe, Balkans Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina, Yugoslavia (former)

Year: 2007

Taxing for Inequalities: Gender Budgeting in the Western Balkans

Citation:

Bojičić-Dželilović, Vesna, and Aida A. Hozić. 2020. “Taxing for Inequalities: Gender Budgeting in the Western Balkans.” Review of International Political Economy, April, 1–25. doi: 10.1080/09692290.2019.1702572.

Authors: Vesna Bojičić-Dželilović, Aida A. Hozić

Abstract:

This article seeks to illuminate structural limits of Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) by analysing the interplay between economic and fiscal reforms, promoted by International Financial Institutions (IFIs), and gender budgeting initiatives in the Western Balkans. GRB is the core concept bridging revenue mobilization and gender equality in the work of IFIs. However, as the Western Balkans experience demonstrates, GRB initiatives are best characterized as “empty gestures” towards gender equality as they cannot compensate for the continued adverse effects of IFIs overall policies.

Keywords: VAT, Western Balkans, revenue mobilization, consumption-led growth, financialization, households, gender responsive budget

Topics: Development, Economies, Public Finance, Gender, Gender Budgeting, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Households, International Financial Institutions, Post-Conflict Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Serbia

Year: 2020

Security as Practice: Discourse Analysis and the Bosnian War

Citation:

Hansen, Lene. 2006. Security as Practice: Discourse Analysis and the Bosnian War. London: Routledge.

Author: Lene Hansen

Annotation:

Summary: 
This important text offers a full and detailed account of how to use discourse analysis to study foreign policy. It provides a poststructuralist theory of the relationship between identity and foreign policy and an in-depth discussion of the methodology of discourse analysis.
 
Part I offers a detailed discussion of the concept of identity, the intertextual relationship between official foreign policy discourse and oppositional and media discourses and of the importance of genres for authors' ability to establish themselves as having authority and knowledge. Lene Hansen devotes particular attention to methodology and provides explicit directions for how to build discourse analytical research designs
 
Part II applies discourse analytical theory and methodology in a detailed analysis of the Western debate on the Bosnian war. This analysis includes a historical genealogy of the Western construction of the Balkans as well as readings of the official British and American policies, the debate in the House of Commons and the US Senate, Western media representations, academic debates and travel writing and autobiography.
 
Providing an introduction to discourse analysis and critical perspectives on international relations, this book will be essential reading for students and scholars of international relations, discourse analysis and research methodology. (Summary from original source) 

Topics: Media, Peace and Security, Security Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina

Year: 2006

Gender, Peacebuilding, and Reconstruction

Citation:

Sweetman, Caroline, ed. 2005. Gender, Peacebuilding, and Reconstruction. Oxfam Focus on Gender. Oxford: Oxfam GB.

Author: Caroline Sweetman

Abstract:

This collection of articles examines the impact of armed conflict on women, men, and gender relations. Gender stereotypes of conflict depict women and children as powerless victims, while men are presented either as saviours of the weak and powerless, or as agents of violence and destruction. Reality is more complex. Women, girls, and boys also wage war as soldiers, often against their will. Atrocities committed against them give rise to desperate physical, mental, and material need, which reconstruction and peace initiatives must recognise and address. In addition, women need to be involved as decision makers in peace and reconstruction processes. These must founded on a vision of equality in governance and everyday social interactions, if a sustainable peace is to come about. Case studies included here come from India, Kosovo, Nicaragua, Sierra Leone, and Uganda.

Keywords: conflict, disasters, protection, reconstruction

Annotation:

Table of Contents:
1. Editorial
Caroline Sweetman
 
2. Counter-revolutionary women: gender and reconciliation in post-war Nicaragua
Julie Cupples
 
3. Reconstructing fragile lives: girls’ social reintegration in northern Uganda and Sierra Leone
Susan McKay
 
4. Post-conflict programmes for women: lessons from the Kosovo Women’s Initiative
Agnes Kalungu-Banda
 
5. Mainstreaming gender in conflict reduction: from challenge to opportunity
Jasmine Whitbread
 
6. Promoting a gender-just peace: the roles of women teachers in peacebuilding and reconstruction
Jackie Kirk
 
7. Gender, participation, and post-conflict planning in northern Sri Lanka
Simon Harris
 
8. The gender dimensions of post-conflict reconstruction: an analytical framework for policymakers
Elaine Zuckerman and Marcia Greenberg
 
9. Building capacity to resolve conflict in communities: Oxfam experience in Rwanda
Rosemarie McNairn
 
10. Sustaining peace, re-building livelihoods: the Gujarat Harmony Project
Sara Ahmed

Topics: Armed Conflict, Combatants, Gender, Gender-Based Violence, Peacebuilding, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Violence Regions: Africa, Central Africa, East Africa, West Africa, Americas, Central America, Asia, South Asia, Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: India, Kosovo, Nicaragua, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Uganda

Year: 2005

Gendering Agency in Transitional Justice

Citation:

Björkdahl, Annika, and Johanna Mannergren Selimovic. 2015. “Gendering Agency in Transitional Justice.” Security Dialogue 46 (2): 165-82.

Authors: Annika Björkdahl, Johanna Mannergren Selimovic

Abstract:

Mainstream transitional justice and peacebuilding practices tend to re-entrench gendered hierarchies by ignoring women or circumscribing their presence to passive victims in need of protection. As a consequence we have limited knowledge about the multifaceted ways women do justice and build peace. To address this lacuna we conceptualize and unpack the meaning of gendered agency, by identifying its critical elements and by locating it in space and in time. The conceptual work that we undertake is underpinned by empirical mapping of the transitional justice spaces in post-conflict Bosnia-Herzegovina, where we point out instances of critical, creative, and transformative agency performed by women that challenge or negotiate patterns of gendered relations of domination. We collect women’s oral narratives and explore new sets of questions to capture women’s unique experiences in doing justice. Such research enables us to engage with the subjects of post-conflict peacebuilding and transitional justice processes directly and in their own spaces. This article thus renders women’s agency visible and attempts to grasp its contributions and consequences for transformations from war to peace.

Keywords: agency, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Gender, peacebuilding, transitional justice

Topics: Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Hierarchies, Justice, Transitional Justice, Peacebuilding, Post-Conflict Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina

Year: 2015

Navigating Consociationalism's Afterlives: Women, Peace and Security in Post-Dayton Bosnia-Herzegovina

Citation:

Deiana, Maria-Adriana. 2018. “Navigating Consociationalism’s Afterlives: Women, Peace and Security in Post-Dayton Bosnia-Herzegovina.” Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 24 (1): 33–49.

Author: Maria-Adriana Deiana

Abstract:

This article revisits the gendered implications of the Dayton peace settlement in Bosnia-Herzegovina and assesses possibilities for the meaningful integration of the Women, Peace and Security agenda into the consociational structures and post-conflict political agenda. This article outlines how the reification and legitimization of ethno-nationalist power over two decades of Dayton has restricted the terrain for gender activism. A critical assessment of post-Dayton governance reveals an unanticipated stratification of the agreement. International pressure for the stability of the peace settlement further constrains the complex task of addressing the gendered legacies of conflict and conflict transformation. In this context, local and international efforts to navigate Dayton's afterlives through gender activism act as a powerful reminder that Bosnia-Herzegovina's unfulfilled peace must remain a priority in research, activist and policymaking agendas.

Topics: Ethnicity, Gender, Women, Conflict, Peace and Security, Governance, Post-Conflict Governance, International Organizations, Nationalism, Peacebuilding, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina

Year: 2018

Peace and Justice through a Feminist Lens: Gender Justice and the Women’s Court for the Former Yugoslavia

Citation:

O’Reilly, Maria. “Peace and Justice through a Feminist Lens: Gender Justice and the Women’s Court for the Former Yugoslavia.” Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 10, no. 3 (July 2, 2016): 419–445.

Author: Maria O'Reilly

Abstract:

Post-conflict interventions to ‘deal with’ violent pasts have moved from exception to global norm. Early efforts to achieve peace and justice were critiqued as ‘gender-blind’—for failing to address sexual and gender-based violence, and neglecting the gender-specific interests and needs of women in transitional settings. The advent of UN Security Council resolutions on ‘Women, Peace and Security’ provided a key policy framework for integrating both women and gender issues into transitional justice processes and mechanisms. Despite this, gender justice and equality in (post-)conflict settings remain largely unachieved. This article explores efforts to attain gender-just peace in post-conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). It critically examines the significance of a recent ‘bottom-up’ truth-telling project—the Women’s Court for the former Yugoslavia—as a locally engaged approach to achieving justice and redress for women impacted by armed conflict. Drawing on participant observation, documentary analysis, and interviews with women activists, the article evaluates the successes and shortcomings of responding to gendered forms of wartime violence through truth-telling. Extending Nancy Fraser’s tripartite model of justice to peacebuilding contexts, the article advances notions of recognition, redistribution and representation as crucial components of gender-just peace. It argues that recognizing women as victims and survivors of conflict, achieving a gender-equitable distribution of material and symbolic resources, and enabling women to participate as agents of transitional justice processes are all essential for transforming the structural inequalities that enable gender violence and discrimination to materialize before, during, and after conflict. (Abstract from original)

Keywords: feminism, gender justice, international, local, Nancy Fraser, UNSCR 1325

Topics: Justice, Transitional Justice, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, UNSCR 1325 Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina

Year: 2016

Intersectionality and LGBT Activist Politics: Multiple Others in Croatia and Serbia

Citation:

Bilić, Bojan, and Sanja Kajinić, eds. 2016. Intersectionality and LGBT Activist Politics: Multiple Others in Croatia and Serbia. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.

Authors: Bojan Bilić, Sanja Kajinić

Abstract:

This volume combines empirically oriented and theoretically grounded reflections upon various forms of LGBT activist engagement to examine how the notion of intersectionality enters the political context of contemporary Serbia and Croatia. By uncovering experiences of multiple oppression and voicing fear and frustration that accompany exclusionary practices, the contributions to this book seek to reinvigorate the critical potential of intersectionality, in order to generate the basis for wider political alliances and solidarities in the post-Yugoslav space. The authors, both activists and academics, challenge the systematic absence of discussions of (post-)Yugoslav LGBT activist initiatives in recent social science scholarship, and show how emancipatory politics of resistance can reshape what is possible to imagine as identity and community in post-war and post-socialist societies. This book will be of interest to scholars and students in the areas of history and politics of Yugoslavia and the post-Yugoslav states, as well as to those working in the fields of political sociology, European studies, social movements, gay and lesbian studies, gender studies, and queer theory and activism. (Palgrave Macmillan)

Annotation:

Table of Contents:

LGBT Activist Politics and Intersectionality in Croatia and Serbia: An Introduction
Bojan Bilić and Sanja Kajinić

Part I Widening the Community

1. The (In)Visible T: Trans Activism in Croatia (2004-2014)
Amir Hodžić, J. Poštić, and Arian Kajtezović

2. Against Bisexual Erasure: The Beginnings of Bi Activism in Serbia
Radica Hura

3. Uncovering an A: Asexuality and Asexual Activism in Croatia and Serbia
Milica Batričević and Andrej Cvetić

4. Queer Beograd Collective: Beyond Single-Issue Activism in Serbia and the Post-Yugoslav Space
Bojan Bilić and Irene Dioli

Part II At the Crossroads of Oppression

5. Nowhere at Home: Homelessness, Non-Heterosexuality, and LGBT Activism in Croatia
Antonela Marušić and Bojan Bilić

6. Normalization, Discipline, and Conflict: Intersections of LGBT Rights and Workers' Rights in Serbia
Irene Dioli

7. Towards a More Inclusive Pride? Representing Multiple Discriminations in the Belgrade Pride Parade
Marija Radoman

8. White Angels Zagreb: Combating Homophobia as "Rural Primitivism"
Andrew Hodges

9. Queer Struggles and the Left in Serbia and Croatia: An Afterword
Dušan Maljković

Index

Topics: Gender, LGBTQ, Political Participation, Post-Conflict Regions: Europe, Balkans Countries: Croatia, Serbia

Year: 2016

Pages

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