Female Combatants

Citation:

Santamaría, Ángela, and Fallon Hernández. 2020. "Fostering Solidarity for Gender/Ethnic Reincorporation: The Experience of Female Indigenous Ex-combatants in Tierra Grata, Cesar." Journal of Gender Studies 29 (2): 117-29.

Authors: Ángela Santamaría, Fallon Hernández

Abstract:

This investigation was developed during the first stage of the implementation of the peace accords in the Transit Normalization Hamlet Zone (TNHZ) of Tierra Grata, Cesar, Colombia in 2017. Through interviews, discussions and ethnographic observation, we reconstructed the trajectories of two indigenous women who contributed to the ethnic reincorporation of female Fuerza Autónoma Revolucionaria del Común (FARC) ex-combatants on a micro-local level. Most ex-combatants are entangled in strong patriarchal ties and have encountered myriad difficulties on their path towards reincorporation. This work seeks to answer the following questions: Who are the main actors of the local reincorporation process? What are their personal trajectories? What are indigenous women's main difficulties with reincorporation from an ethnic and gender perspective in Tierra Grata?

Keywords: reincorporation, FARC, Colombia, indigenous women, ex-combatants

Topics: Combatants, Female Combatants, Ethnicity, Gender, Women, Indigenous, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction Regions: Americas, South America Countries: Colombia

Year: 2020

Citation:

Gilmartin, Niall. 2019. Female Combatants after Armed Struggle: Lost in Transition? New York: Routledge. 

Author: Niall Gilmartin

Annotation:

Topics: Armed Conflict, Combatants, Female Combatants, Feminisms, Gender, Gender-Based Violence, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Governance, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Non-State Armed Groups, Peace and Security, Post-Conflict, Peacekeeping, Violence Regions: Europe, Western Europe Countries: Ireland

Year: 2019

Citation:

Begikhani, Nazand, Wendelmoet Hamelink, and Nerina Weiss. 2018. "Theorising Women and War in Kurdistan: A Feminist and Critical Perspective." Kurdish Studies 6 (1): 5-30. 

Authors: Nazand Begikhani, Akke Wendelmoet Hamelink, Nerina Weiss

Abstract:

In this introductory article to the special issue Women and War in Kurdistan, we connect our topic to feminist theory, to anthropological theory on war and conflict and their long-term consequences, and to theory on gender, nation and (visual) representation. We investigate Kurdish women's victimisation and marginalisation, but also their resistance and agency as female combatants and women activists, their portrayal by media and scholars, and their self-representation. We offer herewith a critical perspective on militarisation, women's liberation, and women's experiences in times of war and peace. We also introduce the five articles in this issue and discuss how they contribute to the study of women and war in two main areas: the wide-reaching effects of war on women’s lives, and the gendered representation and images of war in Kurdistan.

Keywords: feminist theory, gender and nation, sexual violence, women's rights movement

Topics: Armed Conflict, Combatants, Female Combatants, Conflict, Feminisms, Gender, Media, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militarization, Peacebuilding, Sexual Violence, Sexual Exploitation and Abuse Regions: MENA, Asia, Middle East

Year: 2018

Citation:

Thomas, Jakana L., and Reed M. Wood. 2018. "The Social Origins of Female Combatants." Conflict Management and Peace Science 35(3): 215-32.

Authors: Jakana L Thomas, Reed M Wood

Abstract:

We investigate the factors that lead some rebel organizations to deploy women in combat roles while others restrict women's participation to non-combat roles or exclude them entirely. Our argument focuses on the influence of the scope and frequency of women's prior participation in social, political, and economic activities on groups' decisions to employ women in combat roles and women's desire to pursue such roles when they are made available. We evaluate our hypotheses using a new dataset on women's combat participation in rebel movements active from 1979 to 2009. Our results provide support for our central hypothesis. 

Keywords: civil war, female combatants, gender and conflict, rebellion

Topics: Armed Conflict, Civil Wars, Combatants, Female Combatants, Conflict, Gender, Livelihoods

Year: 2018

Citation:

Heathcote, Gina. 2018. "War's Perpetuity: Disabled Bodies of War and the Exoskeleton of Equality." Australian Feminist Law Journal 44, (1): 71-91.

Author: Gina Heathcote

Abstract:

Assistive technologies, such as exoskeletons, work to render female bodies ‘closer’ to male capabilities in armed conflict situations. At the same time, the maiming of male bodies in conflict can be charted as a persistent outcome of armed conflict that has received scant attention within the study of the gendered effects of armed conflict. War’s production of the disabled male body has also led to significant developments with respect to assistive technologies, via the work of, in particular, the US military. I argue that the investment of the US military in the development of exoskeletons, when understood alongside the US military’s investment in assistive mobility technologies for returned soldiers, raises questions about the futility of creating technology only to perpetuate the existence of the battlefield. Far from a project built on gender equality goals, investment in exoskeleton technology seemingly underlines the manner in which the male body of war will increasingly be able to return to the battlefield, to be maimed and to be restored in perpetuity. I conclude by arguing exoskeletons should be used to reimagine subjectivity, via debility, with a mindfulness of the material effects and underlying philosophical traces within subjectivity. I argue for a shift in approaching subjectivity via an intersectional and post-human model, rather than a legal subject that perpetuates modernist man, promotes a thin understanding of gender equality, or deploys exoskeletons as a tool for the destructive impulses of armed conflict.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Combatants, Female Combatants, Male Combatants, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality Regions: Americas, North America Countries: United States of America

Year: 2018

Citation:

Dowler, Lorraine, and Jenna Christian. 2019. "Landscapes of Impunity and the Deaths of Americans LaVena Johnson and Sandra Bland." Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography 26 (6): 813-29.

Authors: Lorraine Dowler, Jenna Christian

Abstract:

On July 19th, 2005, American Army Private First Class LaVena Johnson died in Balad, Iraq, just 8 days shy of her 20th birthday. On July 13th, 2015, almost 10 years later, 28-year-old Sandra Bland’s life came to an abrupt end in a jail cell in Waller County, Texas. Both women’s deaths were ruled suicides, and both women’s families and friends reject these judgments. Instead, they insinuate foul play by the state, which directly governed the militarized spaces within which the women both died. At first glance, these women appear to have had very different life trajectories, one a United States soldier and the other a Black Lives Matter activist. However, in both of their cases, the ruling of the suspicious deaths as suicides illustrates the state’s attempt to render their deaths banal, and thereby diminish the state’s own culpability. In understanding the unremitting acts of violence, on women’s bodies, especially women of color, this paper focuses on how a Black feminist praxis extends feminist notions of an ethics of care.

Keywords: care, Gender, military violence, police violence, race

Topics: Combatants, Female Combatants, Feminisms, Justice, Impunity, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militarization, Race, Violence Regions: Americas, North America Countries: United States of America

Year: 2019

Citation:

Gordon, Eleanor. 2019. “Gender and Defence Sector Reform: Problematising the Place of Women in Conflict-Affected Environments.” Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 13 (1): 75–94.

Author: Eleanor Gordon

Abstract:

While gender-responsive Security Sector Reform (SSR) is increasingly recognised as being key to successful SSR programmes, women continue to be marginalised in post-conflict SSR programmes, particularly defence sector reform. By focussing on developments in Nepal, Sri Lanka, Kosovo and Colombia, this article explores the paradox of women’s marginalisation in defence sector reform and post-reform defence structures in places where women were active combatants during the preceding conflict. This article refers to examples of women’s engagement in combat to challenge some of the reasons given for women’s marginalisation, including reference to women’s skillset, aptitude and interests. The article adopts a feminist institutionalist approach to show how SSR helps security sector institutions construct and reconstruct gender power relations, reinforce gendered dynamics of exclusion, and determine gendered outcomes. It concludes by drawing attention to the transformational potential of SSR to alter gender power relations, and thereby enhance the security of women and the sustainability of peacebuilding efforts.

Keywords: defence sector reform, security sector reform, female combatants, Gender, peacebuilding

Topics: Combatants, Female Combatants, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Peacebuilding, Security Sector Reform Regions: Americas, South America, Asia, South Asia, Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Colombia, Kosovo, Nepal, Sri Lanka

Year: 2019

Citation:

Gordon, Eleanor. 2019. "Gender and Defence Sector Reform: Problematising the Place of Women in Conflict-Affected Environments." Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 13 (1): 75-94.

Author: Eleanor Gordon

Abstract:

While gender-responsive Security Sector Reform (SSR) is increasingly recognised as being key to successful SSR programmes, women continue to be marginalised in post-conflict SSR programmes, particularly defence sector reform. By focussing on developments in Nepal, Sri Lanka, Kosovo and Colombia, this article explores the paradox of women’s marginalisation in defence sector reform and post-reform defence structures in places where women were active combatants during the preceding conflict. This article refers to examples of women’s engagement in combat to challenge some of the reasons given for women’s marginalisation, including reference to women’s skillset, aptitude and interests. The article adopts a feminist institutionalist approach to show how SSR helps security sector institutions construct and reconstruct gender power relations, reinforce gendered dynamics of exclusion, and determine gendered outcomes. It concludes by drawing attention to the transformational potential of SSR to alter gender power relations, and thereby enhance the security of women and the sustainability of peacebuilding efforts.

Keywords: defence sector reform, security sector reform, female combatants, Gender, peacebuilding

Topics: Combatants, Female Combatants, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Peacebuilding, Security, Security Sector Reform Regions: Americas, South America, Asia, South Asia, Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Colombia, Kosovo, Nepal, Sri Lanka

Year: 2019

Citation:

Gordon, Eleanor. 2019. "Gender and Defence Sector Reform: Problematising the Place of Women in Conflict-Affected Environments." Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 13 (1): 75-94.

Author: Eleanor Goldon

Abstract:

While gender-responsive Security Sector Reform (SSR) is increasingly recognised as being key to successful SSR programmes, women continue to be marginalised in post-conflict SSR programmes, particularly defence sector reform. By focussing on developments in Nepal, Sri Lanka, Kosovo and Colombia, this article explores the paradox of women’s marginalisation in defence sector reform and post-reform defence structures in places where women were active combatants during the preceding conflict. This article refers to examples of women’s engagement in combat to challenge some of the reasons given for women’s marginalisation, including reference to women’s skillset, aptitude and interests. The article adopts a feminist institutionalist approach to show how SSR helps security sector institutions construct and reconstruct gender power relations, reinforce gendered dynamics of exclusion, and determine gendered outcomes. It concludes by drawing attention to the transformational potential of SSR to alter gender power relations, and thereby enhance the security of women and the sustainability of peacebuilding efforts.

Keywords: security sector reform (SSR), female combatants, Gender, peacebuilding, defence sector reform

Topics: Combatants, Female Combatants, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Peacebuilding, Post-Conflict, Security, Security Sector Reform Regions: Americas, South America, Asia, South Asia, Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Colombia, Kosovo, Nepal, Sri Lanka

Year: 2019

Citation:

Upreti, Bishnu, Sharmila Shivakoti, and Kohinoor Bharati. 2018. "Frustrated and Confused: Mapping the Socio-political Struggles of Female Ex-combatants in Nepal." Journal of International Women's Studies 19 (4): 32-52.

Authors: Bishnu Upreti, Sharmila Shivakoti, Kohinoor Bharati

Abstract:

The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) declared an armed insurrection against the State in February 1996; they began to attack police posts and gradually the insurrection was sparked all over the country, lasting for ten years. Consequently, it caused 17,886 deaths, 79,571 displacements, 1,530 disappearance, 3,142 abductions, 8,935 disabilities, and left 620 children orphaned (MoPR 2016). In the armed conflict 20 percent of Maoist combatants were women. After several rounds of negotiations, the armed conflict ended in November 2006, with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the Government of Nepal and the then Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) that demanded disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) of the Maoist ex-combatants. Among the ex-combatants the DDR process for reintegrating female ex-combatants was more complicated. This paper examines the DDR process with a specific focus on ex-combatants. Focus group interviews, key informant interviews, roundtable discussions, and direct interviews with the female- ex-combatants were the methods used in collecting data, in addition to secondary sources. This paper argues that the DDR was not only contested, but also procedurally flawed, and therefore not able to produce the desired result. Because the DDR was a complex, socio-psychol ogi cal and politico-economic process and required sensitive handling, key Nepali actors and international supporters failed to properly deal with the DDR. The DDR process was largely gender-blind and therefore, the female ex-combatants suffered more in terms of their social relations, specific needs and achieving livelihood security. The approach of United Mission to Nepal (UNMIN) was one of the reasons; consequently, its engagement was terminated without completing the DDR process mainly because it failed to internalize gender sensitivity and local complexity.

Keywords: armed-conflict, disarmament, demobilization, ex-combatants, Maoist, peace, reintegration, Nepal armed conflict

Topics: Armed Conflict, Combatants, Female Combatants, DDR, Gender, Livelihoods, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Security Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Nepal

Year: 2018