Militarization

Citation:

Cock, Jacklyn. 1994. "Women and the Military: Implications for Demilitarization in the 1990s in South Africa." Gender & Society 8 (2): 152-69.

Author: Jacklyn Cock

Abstract:

Militarization--the mobilization of resources for war--is a gendering process. It both uses and maintains the ideological construction of gender in the definitions of masculinity and femininity. This article draws on material from contemporary South Africa to illustrate the relation between gender and militarization in four respects: how women actively contribute toward the process of militarization; the similarities in the position of women in both conventional and guerrilla armies; the durability of patriarchy and the fragility of the gains made for women during periods of war; and, finally, how the South African experience sharpens the debate about the relation between equal rights and women's participation in armies. The article concludes that there is no necessary relation between demilitarization and gender equality.

Topics: DDR, Gender, Women, Masculinity/ies, Femininity/ies, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Gender Equality/Inequality, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries, Militarization, Non-State Armed Groups, Rights Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: South Africa

Year: 1994

Citation:

Chenoy, Anuradha. 2004. "Gender and International Politics: The Intersections of Patriarchy and Militarisation." Indian Journal of Gender Studies 11 (1): 27-42.

Author: Anuradha Chenoy

Abstract:

The policies of globalisation and militarisation are lending a muscular discourse to international politics, which provide continuity to the principle of patriarchy and privilege, especially during times of threat and conflict. This kind of politics has a structural impact on society because it endorses traditional gender roles and places people in binary categories like 'with us' or 'against us', 'civilised' and 'uncivilised', 'warriors' or 'wimps'. The militarist discourse marginalises opposition, diversity and difference, and with this the value of force as part of power is privileged, and militant nationalism exaggerated. Each local culture has its variant of the muscular discourse. As women try and increase their agency, the perception is that when women accept militarist notions of power it is easier for them to become part of national security and state institutions. This is a major challenge to feminist culture and thinking.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Feminisms, Gender, Gender Roles, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Globalization, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militarism, Militarization, Nationalism, Security

Year: 2004

Citation:

Macklin, Audrey. 2004. “Like Oil and Water, with a Match: Militarized Commerce, Armed Conflict and Human Security in Sudan.” In Sites of Violence: Gender and Conflict Zones, edited by Wenona Mary Giles and Jennifer Hyndman, 75-107. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Author: Audrey Macklin

Abstract:

This article examines the gendered reverberations of global capital investment in a conflict zone, from the north with armed conflict in the south. Specifically, the article examines the author’s experience as a member of an independent assessment mission to Sudan appointed by the Canadian government. The team’s mandate was to investigate the link between oil development and human rights violations with particular reference to the Canadian oil company Talisman. In 1998 Talisman acquired a 25% share in the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company (GNPOC). North and South Sudan had been embroiled in an armed civil conflict almost continuously since 1956 and the oil fields were located on contested territory. This article contrasts the idea of human security (advanced as part of Canada’s foreign policy agenda at the time), with traditional conceptions of military and corporate security, using the experience of Sudanese women affected by the conflict as a way of illustrating the incongruities between competing understandings of security. It concludes that the presence of Talisman in Sudan encouraged the prioritization of corporate and military security over human security, exacerbating the human rights violations and perpetuating the struggle of women. Finally, this article evaluates strategies used by different stakeholders to encourage the Canadian company to take responsibility for its role in human rights violations.

(Abstract from Social Science Research Network)

Topics: Armed Conflict, Gender, Women, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Private Military & Security, Militarization, Political Economies, Rights, Human Rights, Security, Human Security Regions: Africa, East Africa Countries: Sudan

Year: 2004

Citation:

Golden, Rebecca Lynne. 2012. “Armed Resistance: Masculinities, Egbesu Spirits, and Violence in the Niger Delta of Nigeria.” PhD diss., Tulane University.

Author: Rebecca Lynne Golden

Annotation:

Summary:

This dissertation addresses the Ijaw/Ijo armed resistance movement for self-determination waged by young men against multinational oil companies and the Federal Government of Nigeria in the Niger Delta. I investigated the reciprocity of violence, the transgression of social order, and the search for legitimacy. The processes of defining Ijaw masculinities as responses to the everyday militarization and of this riverine, polluted environment and the increasing marginalization of Ijaw youth encompassed three dimensions of warriorhood, cosmology, and reciprocal, brutal disorder. This struggle was not one of disengagement but of diverse involvement, where a generation of men, were torn together by poverty, despair, and revolt. Complex notions of agency, (dis)connection, and belonging provide outlets for a youth-based political hierarchy that hurls young men over the gerontocracy and into the mainstream of Ijaw petrol politics. Armed with Egbesu (powerful Ijaw god of justice and war) warriors intensified their violent resistance, infused with renewed vigor from historical, ethno-spiritual identities. I demonstrated, through a progression of violent professionalization and a new democracy, that indigenous cosmology shaped and legitimized the struggle against the Nigerian Government; Egbesu orders daily lives in a world of disorder. The war god offers a counter-balance to tradition and modernity, and yet he is the manifestation of both. I revealed that the modern Ijaw warrior believes that well-organized, fighting organizations are capable of propelling the Delta out of her problems while socially promoting young men to senior status, as condoned by their elders. The new Ijaw warrior dreams of returning to his village or town as a hero to supplant older forms of rule, yet he is no longer in control of his lands and trading routes. Instead, oil lifting, pipeline sabotage, and burning cash have become the new order. The armed rebellion wove a web of betrayals and disillusionment. The contradictory reverberations of failures and successes of Ijaw warriors continues to anchor everyday meanings on historical transgressions, warrior obligations, and future aspirations for social inclusion, while sequestering the emergent Ijaw warrior in perpetual battle. He is the unseen additive in the Nigerian oil, on which the world depends.

Topics: Age, Youth, Armed Conflict, Democracy / Democratization, Economies, Environment, Extractive Industries, Gender, Boys, Masculinity/ies, Men, Indigenous, Indigenous Knowledge Systems, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militarization, Multi-National Corporations, Violence Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Nigeria

Year: 2012

Citation:

Trenholm, Jill, Pia Olsson, Martha Blomqvist, and Beth Maina Ahlberg. 2013. “Constructing Soldiers from Boys in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.” Men and Masculinities 16 (2): 203-27. 

Authors: Jill Trenholm, Pia Olsson, Martha Blomqvist, Beth Maina Ahlberg

Abstract:

This study is part of an ethnography focusing on war rape in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo where child soldiers are both victims and perpetrators of violence. Twelve ex-child soldier boys, aged thirteen to eighteen years, from a reintegration facility were interviewed about their soldiering experiences and their perspectives on sexual violence. Transcripts were analyzed using thematic analysis. Conceptual frameworks of militarized masculine identity and gender-based violence guided the process. Results revealed the systematic and violent construction of children into soldiers, inculcating a “militarized masculinity”; a rigid set of stereotypical hypermasculinized behaviors promoting dominance by violating, sexually and otherwise, the subordinate “other.” This was achieved through terrorizing/coercing, use of indigenous preparations, substance abuse, and forbidden reflection. This article presents a more contextualized complex view of the violent perpetrator whose behaviors are a manifestation of the modes and mechanisms in which society has constructed/reconstructed gender, ethnicity, and class, and the power dynamics therein.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Combatants, Child Soldiers, Gender, Boys, Masculinity/ies, Gender-Based Violence, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militarization, Sexual Violence, Rape, Violence Regions: Africa, Central Africa Countries: Democratic Republic of the Congo

Year: 2013

Citation:

Moran, Mary H. 2010. “Gender, Militarism, and Peace-Building: Projects of the Postconflict Moment.” Annual Review of Anthropology 39 (1): 261-74. doi:10.1146/annurev-anthro-091908-164406.

Author: Mary H. Moran

Abstract:

Scholars have argued for decades about the relationship between biological sex and organized violence, but feminist analysts across numerous disciplines have documented the range and variety of gendered roles in times of war. In recent years, research has brought new understanding of the rapidity with which ideas about masculinity and femininity can change in times of war and the role of militarization in constructing and enforcing the meaning of manhood and womanhood. In the post-Cold War period, 'new wars' have mobilized gender in multiple ways, and peace-building is often managed by external humanitarian organizations. A strange disconnect exists between the massive body of scholarly research on gender, militarism, and peace-building and on-the-ground practices in postconflict societies, where essentialized ideas of men as perpetrators of violence and women as victims continue to guide much program design.

Topics: Armed Conflict, "New Wars", Feminisms, Gender, Masculinity/ies, Gender Roles, Femininity/ies, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militarism, Militarization, Peacebuilding, Post-Conflict, Violence

Year: 2010

Citation:

Barry, Kathleen. 2011. Unmaking War, Remaking Men: How Empathy Can Reshape Our Politics, Our Soldiers, and Ourselves. Santa Rosa, CA: Phoenix Rising Press of Santa Rosa.

Author: Kathleen Barry

Abstract:

In Unmaking War, Remaking Men, Kathleen Barry probes what happens to the value we hold for human life in making war. She explores combat soldiers' experiences through a politics of empathy. By revealing how men's lives are made expendable for combat, she shows how military training drives them to kill without thinking and without remorse, induces violence against women, and leaves soldiers to suffer both trauma and loss of their own souls. She turns to her politics of empathy to shed new light on the experiences of those who are invaded and occupied and shows how resistance rises among them. And what of the state leaders and the generals who make war? In 2001, a fateful year for the world, George W. Bush became President of the US; Ariel Sharon became Prime Minister of Israel; and Osama bin Laden became the de facto world terrorist leader. Analyzing their leadership and failure of empathy, Unmaking War, Remaking Men reveals a common psychopathology of those driven to ongoing war, first making enemies, then labeling them as terrorists or infidels. This book -with its exposé of how blinding macho at home finds its way into war- challenges the U.S. preeminence in the world with a program for demilitarization of all states, and remaking the masculinity that drives men to combat. In uncovering how resistance forces come about under occupation with its high civilian death toll, house raids and humiliations, Barry shows that aggressor states are in the business of making enemies to perpetuate ongoing war. Considering Israel as an arm of US military power, Unmaking War, Remaking Men examines how both states have misused the term 'terrorist' by refusing to acknowledge that both Hizbullah and Hamas are resistance movements of self-determination. Kathleen Barry asks: 'What would it take to unmake war?' She scrutinizes the demilitarized state of Costa Rica and compares its claims of peace with its high rate of violence against women. She then turns to the urgent problem of how might men remake themselves by unmaking masculinity. She offers models for a new masculinity drawing on the experiences of men who have resisted war and have in turn transformed their lives into a new kind of humanity; into a place where the value of being human counts. (Amazon)

Topics: Armed Conflict, Combatants, Male Combatants, Gender, Men, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries, Militarization, Violence

Year: 2011

Citation:

Scanlon, Helen. 2008. “Militarization, Gender and Transitional Justice in Africa.” Feminist Africa 10: 31-48.

Author: Helen Scanlon

Topics: Gender, Justice, Transitional Justice, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militarization Regions: Africa

Year: 2008

Citation:

Baines, Erin. 2011. “Gender, Responsibility, and the Grey Zone: Considerations for Transitional Justice.” Journal of Human Rights 10 (4): 477-93.

Author: Erin Baines

Abstract:

The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has forcibly recruited tens of thousands of youth from northern Uganda, Southern Sudan, and more presently the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic. The longer that abducted youth spend inside the armed group, the more likely they will assume positions of command. These roles are differentiated on the basis of sex and gender expectations: young men are more likely to become active combatants and young women are more likely to become forced “wives” and mothers. As a result, forcibly recruited male and female youth are assumed to hold different degrees of responsibility. Comparing the life stories of an abducted male and female youth who became LRA commanders, I argue that each made choices within a state of coerced militarized masculinity. The question of responsibility must be located in the context of a present-day grey zone, and must unsettle gendered assumptions about men and women, and guilt and innocence. Transitional justice has only begun to grapple with the ambiguity of gender, responsibility, and the grey zone.

Topics: Age, Youth, Armed Conflict, Combatants, Child Soldiers, Gender, Girls, Boys, Masculinity/ies, Gendered Power Relations, Justice, Transitional Justice, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militarization, Sexual Violence, Sexual Exploitation and Abuse Regions: Africa, Central Africa, East Africa Countries: Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Uganda

Year: 2011

Citation:

Dorion, Fabienne. 2010. “Widows, Mothers, Activists: Indigenous Achí Women’s Experiences of La Violencia in Rabinal, Guatemala.” Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement 1 (1): 77-90.

Author: Fabienne Dorion

Abstract:

This paper explores Indigenous Achí women’s experiences of militarisation and armed conflict in Rabinal, Guatemala during the period known as La Violencia (1978-1985) and its aftermath. The aim of this paper is to challenge accounts of armed conflict that portray women as essentially passive victims of violence by examining widows’ resiliency in ensuring their own and their family’s survival after the loss of their husband and their agency in organising around issues of truth, justice and reconciliation in the aftermath of the conflict. The discussion is especially focused on the influence that women’s role as mothers has had in shaping their experiences of the aftermath of armed conflict, as recounted in participant-led interviews with survivors of La Violencia. Interviews were conducted in rural Rabinal communities between December 2005 and May 2006 in the context of Master’s thesis research and fieldwork with the Association for the Integral Development of the Victims of the Violence in the Verapaces, Maya Achí (adivima).

Topics: Armed Conflict, Gender, Gender Roles, Women, Indigenous, Justice, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militarization, Post-Conflict, Violence Regions: Americas, Central America Countries: Guatemala

Year: 2010