Oceania

Citation:

Carson, Lisa. 2016. "Pre-deployment 'Gender' Training and the Lack thereof for Australian Peacekeepers." Australian Journal of International Affairs 70 (3): 275-92.

Author: Lisa Carson

Abstract:

In the area of peacekeeping training, Australia has a reputation of promoting ‘best practice’ internationally. Training for Australian police peacekeepers has been described by the United Nations as ‘one-of-a-kind’ and ‘a world-class model of best practice’. This article provides a case study of how gender training is conducted, and how ‘gender’ is understood from a critical feminist perspective. This article focuses only on the pre-deployment training stage and is informed by confidential interviews with staff from the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Defence Force, as well as observing training in 2013–14. The findings suggest that the training is inadequate because it is not carried out for all peacekeeping personnel, despite international and national requirements to do so. In addition, the findings suggest that ‘gender’ is understood in a very limited way that does not problematise power relations between the sexes and is only covered as a way of understanding the peacekeeping context, and not in relation to the attitudes and behaviours of peacekeepers themselves. This raises the question of whether and how other troop-contributing countries conduct the training and to what standard, given the documented problems of Australia's supposedly ‘best-practice’ training.

Keywords: Australia, gender, gender training, National Action Plan, peacekeeping training, United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325

Topics: Feminisms, Gender, International Organizations, Peacekeeping, Peace Processes, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, UNSCR 1325 Regions: Oceania Countries: Australia

Year: 2016

Citation:

Siapno, Jacqueline. 2020. "Brave Warriors, Unfinished Revolutions: Political Subjectivities of Women Combatants in East Timor." In Women Warriors in Southeast Asia, edited by Vina Lanzona and Frederik Rettig, 246-63. New York: Routledge. 

Author: Jacqueline Siapno

Annotation:

Summary:
This chapter is an ethnography of institutions (military and police) and an examination of the DDR (Demobilisation, Disarmament, and Reintegration) and SSR (Security Sector Reform) processes in post-war Timor-Leste, focusing in particular on the situation of women in the National Police Force and the National Defense Force. The methodology includes fieldwork and oral interviews and public discussion presenting research findings to the hierarchy of justice, security, and defense institutions in East Timor and linking it to public policy on engendering security sector reform and corruption in the public service. The chapter includes interviews articulating the voices of women who fought in the anti-colonial resistance, their subsequent disillusionment, strategies for survival, their reflections on the unfinished if not betrayed revolution, but at the same time, the continuing pursuit of the ideals of justice, equality, independence, and healing from the war and from the life-space of militarised masculinities.

Topics: Combatants, Female Combatants, DDR, Gender, Masculinity/ies, Peace and Security, Post-Conflict, Security Sector Reform Regions: Oceania Countries: Timor-Leste

Year: 2020

Citation:

Blackburn, Susan. 2020. "The Aftermath for Women Warriors: Cambodia and East Timor." In Women Warriors in Southeast Asia, edited by Vina Lanzona and Frederik Rettig, 229-45. New York: Routledge.

Author: Susan Blackburn

Annotation:

Summary:
This chapter examines what happens to women combatants at the end of armed conflicts, taking case studies from research in Cambodia and East Timor in 2005–2006. The evidence shows that the fate of women ex-combatants depends in part on the nature of the conflict and which side women fought on. The chapter investigates how the process known as disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) of former combatants was conducted in these two countries, in light of the United Nations resolution recommending gender awareness in DDR. Using the two countries as examples, the chapter notes the difficulties in giving due recognition to female ex-combatants.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Combatants, Female Combatants, DDR, Conflict, International Organizations, Post-Conflict, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS Regions: Asia, Southeast Asia, Oceania Countries: Cambodia, Timor-Leste

Year: 2020

Citation:

Davies, Sara E., and Jacqui True, eds. 2019. The Oxford Handbook of Women, Peace and Security. New York: Oxford University Press.

Authors: Sara E. Davies, Jacqui True

Abstract:

The Oxford Handbook on Women, Peace, and Security examines the significant and evolving international Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda, which scholars and practitioners have together contributed to advancing over almost two decades. Fifteen years since the passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), the WPS agenda has never been more salient on the agenda of states and international organizations. The Global Study of 1325 (“Preventing Conflict, Securing Peace”) commissioned by the UN Secretary-General and released in September 2015, however, found that there is a major implementation gap with respect to UNSCR 1325 that accounts for the gaping absence of women’s participation in peace and transitional decision-making processes. With independent, critical, and timely analysis by scholars, advocates, and policymakers across global regions, the Oxford Handbook synthesizes new and enduring knowledge, collectively taking stock of what has been achieved and what remains incomplete and unfinished about the WPS agenda. The handbook charts the collective way forward to increase the impact of WPS research, theory, and practice.

Keywords: WPS agenda, women peace and security, UNSCR 1325, gender and security, UN Security Council, women's rights, conflict and post-conflict

Annotation:

Topics: Civil Society, Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Conflict, Conflict Prevention, Displacement & Migration, Economies, Environment, Climate Change, Feminisms, Gender, Masculinity/ies, Gender Mainstreaming, Gendered Power Relations, International Law, International Organizations, LGBTQ, Peacekeeping, Peace and Security, Peace Processes, Post-Conflict, Rights, Human Rights, Women's Rights, Sexual Violence, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, UNSCR 1325, Weapons /Arms Regions: Africa, MENA, West Africa, Americas, South America, Asia, East Asia, Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Europe, Nordic states, Northern Europe, Oceania Countries: Afghanistan, Australia, China, Colombia, Liberia, Norway, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Sierra Leone, Syria

Year: 2019

Citation:

George, Nicole. 2018. "Liberal–Local Peacebuilding in Solomon Islands and Bougainville: Advancing a Gender-Just Peace?" International Affairs 94 (6): 1329-48. 

Author: Nicole George

Abstract:

The ‘local turn’ in peacebuilding has been inspired by the idea that post-conflict order is made more just, representative and legitimate when there is greater recognition and incorporation of local sites of authority. However, the gendered visions of security that may be projected from these spheres have often escaped critical attention. This oversight continues despite growing feminist interest in understanding both the contributions that women can make to the durability of conflict settlement processes and the obstacles that often prevent those contributions from progressing. In this article, I examine the frictional encounters that occur between the local and the liberal in peacebuilding and focus particularly on what this means for women. I argue that a focus on vernacular security provides a productive analytical lens for answering this question and for building understanding of where and how women are advantaged and disadvantaged by projects of post-conflict transition. My findings demonstrate how the security vernaculars that are generated in liberal–local peacebuilding produce scenarios that are often contradictory for women and can be enabling and constraining in different contexts. The discussion draws from recent research findings on the gendered impacts of peacebuilding and post-conflict restoration in Bougainville, an autonomous territory of Papua New Guinea, and Solomon Islands.

Topics: Conflict, Gender, Women, Peace and Security, Post-Conflict, Peacebuilding, Security Regions: Oceania Countries: Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands

Year: 2018

Citation:

Yousuf, Zahbia, and Sophia Close. 2019. "Gendered Political Settlements and Peacebuilding: Mapping Inclusion in Practice." feminists@law 9 (1).  

Authors: Zahbia Yousuf, Sophia Close

Abstract:

This paper looks at practice-research methods used by Conciliation Resources (CR), an international peacebuilding organisation, as part of the Political Settlements Research Project. Between 2015 and 2017, Conciliation Resources and its partners convened three learning workshops in Nepal, Colombia, and Bougainville. The workshops ‘tested’ understandings of political settlements in conflict-affected contexts, with a specific focus on gender, through participatory practice-based research. The paper explores how co-learning approaches were developed and designed between CR and its partners: including how questions of inclusion, gender and political settlements were adapted to specific contexts; the approaches and methods developed; and the challenges and potential for research to influence peacebuilding practice. It also provides a critical reflection on the processes and outcomes of co-learning between international and local partners.

Topics: Conflict, Gender, Peacebuilding Regions: Americas, South America, Asia, South Asia, Oceania Countries: Colombia, Nepal, Papua New Guinea

Year: 2019

Citation:

Smith, Sarah. 2019. Gendering Peace: UN Peacebuilding in Timor-Leste. Abingdon: Routledge. 

Author: Sarah Smith

Annotation:

Topics: Conflict, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Post-Conflict, Peacebuilding, Peace Processes, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS Regions: Oceania Countries: Timor-Leste

Year: 2019

Citation:

Hutchinson, Susan. 2018. "Leading the Operationalisation of WPS." Security Challenges 14 (2): 124-43.

Author: Susan Hutchinson

Annotation:

Topics: Armed Conflict, DDR, Gender, Women, Governance, International Organizations, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries, Security, Security Sector Reform, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS Regions: Africa, Central Africa, East Africa, Americas, North America, Asia, South Asia, Europe, Balkans, Nordic states, Northern Europe, Western Europe, Oceania Countries: Afghanistan, Australia, Canada, Ireland, Rwanda, Sweden, Timor-Leste, United States of America, Yugoslavia (former)

Year: 2018

Citation:

Swaine, Aisling. 2018. Conflict-Related Violence against Women. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Author: Aisling Swaine

Abstract:

By comparatively assessing three conflict-affected jurisdictions (Liberia, Northern Ireland and Timor-Leste), Conflict-Related Violence against Women empirically and theoretically expands current understanding of the form and nature of conflict-time harms impacting women. The 'violences' that occur in conflict beyond strategic rape are first identified. Employing both a disaggregated and an aggregated approach, relations between forms of violence within and across each context's pre-, mid- and post-conflict phase are then assessed, identifying connections and distinctions in violence. Swaine highlights a wider spectrum of conflict-related violence against women than is currently acknowledged. She identifies a range of forces that simultaneously push open and close down spaces for addressing violence against women through post-conflict transitional justice. The book proposes that in the aftermath of conflict, a transformation rather than a transition is required if justice is to play a role in preventing gendered violence before conflict and its appearance during and after conflict.

Annotation:

Topics: Armed Conflict, Conflict, Gender, Women, Justice, Transitional Justice, Post-Conflict, Sexual Violence, Rape, SV against Women, Violence Regions: Africa, West Africa, Europe, Western Europe, Oceania Countries: Ireland, Liberia, Timor-Leste

Year: 2018

Citation:

Agutter, Karen, and Catherine Kevin. 2018. "Lost in Translation: Managing Medicalised Motherhood in Post-world War Two Australian Migrant Accommodation Centres." Women's History Review 27 (7): 1065-84.

Authors: Karen Agutter, Catherine Kevin

Abstract:

Women who began their lives as ‘New Australians’ in migrant centres, arriving from refugee camps and war-ravaged homelands, brought with them a range of interpretations of good health and its management. In post-WWII Australia, the medicalisation of maternity and infant welfare intensified in the context of a renewed anxiety about population and recent medical developments. This article investigates the systems and quality of care given to pregnant women, infants and new mothers in government funded accommodation centres. This care was delivered in the highly politicised context of a mass migration scheme sold to the host population as coming at minimum social and economic cost. We assess the impact of this political context on the care that was provided and reveal health care settings to be crucial sites for the examination of the complex biopolitics of gendered citizenship within the mass migration scheme.

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Migration, Refugees, Gender, Health, Reproductive Health, Livelihoods, Post-Conflict Regions: Oceania Countries: Australia

Year: 2018