Peacebuilding

Citation:

Ellerby, Kara. 2016. “A Seat at the Table Is Not Enough: Understanding Women’s Substantive Representation in Peace Processes.” Peacebuilding 4 (2): 136–50.

Author: Kara Ellerby

Abstract:

While the international community stresses the importance of including women at the peace table so peace processes will better represent their needs and interests, it is unclear what specifically this inclusion entails. Do women need to be negotiators, mediators? Do peace agreements adequately represent women’s interests when women are included? This article engages UNSC Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security as a framework through which to assess peace processes and agreements. A woman-focused examination of all civil war peace processes reveals that less than 10% meet women’s inclusion as envisioned in UNSCR 1325. This article focuses on the three conditions accounting for women’s substantive representation in peacebuilding. What emerges are three joint necessities: an explicit women’s agenda; access to the peace process; and advocacy within the process. The final sections problematise how even in all of these positive cases women had to fight to participate.

Keywords: women, gender, representation, stakeholders, UNSCR 1325

Topics: Armed Conflict, Civil Wars, Gender, Women, Peacebuilding, Political Participation, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, UNSCR 1325

Year: 2016

Citation:

Shepherd, Laura J. 2016. “Victims of Violence or Agents of Change? Representations of Women in UN Peacebuilding Discourse.” Peacebuilding 4 (2): 121–35.

Author: Laura J. Shepherd

Abstract:

The Women, Peace and Security agenda at the United Nations is the policy architecture that assures the meaningful participation of women in UN peacebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction activities. It is a reasonable expectation that UN entities would leverage WPS principles and priorities to inform gender-responsive peacebuilding and recovery. This paper investigates the imbrication of WPS discourse in the discourse of the UN Peacebuilding Commission. I argue that there has historically been limited integration of the WPS architecture with the UN PBC, but this does not mean that the Commission’s activities are not upholding and even enhancing WPS principles and objectives. The opposite is true, and this raises interesting questions about the coherence of the WPS agenda, and the UN as an organisation, in terms of its ability to develop and implement an integrated and holistic gender-sensitive peacebuilding agenda.

Keywords: gender, women, agency, peacebuilding, United Nations

Topics: Gender, Women, International Organizations, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Peacebuilding, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS

Year: 2016

Citation:

Baker, Catherine. 2019. “Veteran Masculinities and Audiovisual Popular Music in Post-Conflict Croatia: A Feminist Aesthetic Approach to the Contested Everyday Peace.” Peacebuilding 7 (2): 226–42.

Author: Catherine Baker

Abstract:

In Croatia, campaigners for a more critical public reckoning with the memory of Croatia's 'Homeland War' (1991–5) and the national past confront embeddings of hegemonic myths of the war into everyday life. Among these are the stardom of a musician whose 'patriotic' music claims the same moral authority as the Croatian veterans' movement and whose public persona has embodied militarised masculinity since he became a wartime star. Popular music and youth engagement with it is thus among the sites where everyday understandings of peace are being contested. By exploring the audiovisual aesthetics of the song/video through which this musician re-engaged with veterans' activism in 1998, and showing that popular music spectatorship seeps into the everyday micropolitics of young people building and contesting peace, the paper argues that for critical peace and conflict studies to understand the affective politics of post-conflict masculinities, they must combine a feminist and aesthetic consciousness.

Keywords: audiovisual aesthetics, Croatia, everyday peace, masculinities, popular music, veterans

Topics: Age, Youth, Armed Conflict, Conflict, Feminisms, Gender, Masculinity/ies, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militarization, Post-Conflict, Peacebuilding Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Croatia

Year: 2019

Citation:

Partis-Jennings, Hannah. 2019. “The ‘Third Gender’ in Afghanistan: A Feminist Account of Hybridity as a Gendered Experience.” Peacebuilding 7 (2): 178–93.

Author: Hannah Partis-Jennings

Abstract:

This article offers a significant contribution to critical peace studies and feminist peace studies by exploring an undertheorized manifestation of hybridity and friction in Afghanistan from a feminist perspective. It focuses on female international humanitarian actors, their use of the term ‘third gender’ to describe their perceived position, and their experiences of performing their gender in hybridised ways. Using original interview data, it argues that the particularly gendered experiences of these actors are key to recognising the gendered nature of peacebuilding and the intersections between feminist approaches and critical peace concepts.

Keywords: hybridity, friction, Afghanistan, third gender, feminism, peacebuilding

Topics: Feminisms, Gender, Humanitarian Assistance, Peacebuilding Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Afghanistan

Year: 2019

Citation:

Kappler, Stefanie, and Nicolas Lemay-Hébert. 2019. “From Power-Blind Binaries to the Intersectionality of Peace: Connecting Feminism and Critical Peace and Conflict Studies.” Peacebuilding 7 (2): 160–77.

Authors: Stefanie Kappler, Nicolas Lemay-Hébert

Abstract:

Critical Peace and Conflict Studies scholars have increasingly sought to overcome binary approaches to engage more fully the ways in which peacebuilding missions are designed, implemented and contested. In doing so, scholars have tried to understand ‘the local’ and mobilised three different concepts to do so – hybridity, the everyday and narratives. However, this shift has failed to translate into fully convincing research transcending the old binaries of ‘international’ and ‘local’. The use of the ‘everyday’ sees power everywhere, hybridity approaches fall into the same binary trap scholars want to avoid in the first place, and narrative approaches tend to focus on very personal stories, removing structural power from the equation. We suggest that a fruitful interaction with Feminist approaches and methodologies, and especially the scholarship on intersectionality, can help shed a new light on the power imbalances and inequalities within peacebuilding missions. We highlight the possible contribution of the concept of intersectionality to Critical Peace and Conflict Studies through an intersectionality of peace approach, which allows for a better understanding of multiple and complex identities of researchers and researchees. We illustrate this argument through a discussion of intersectional narratives centred around the space of the ‘guesthouse’ of South Africa.

Keywords: hyrbidity, the everyday, intersectionality, feminism, South Africa

Topics: Conflict, Feminisms, Intersectionality, Peacebuilding Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: South Africa

Year: 2019

Citation:

Julian, Rachel, Berit Bliesemann de Guevara, and Robin Redhead. 2019. “From Expert to Experiential Knowledge: Exploring the Inclusion of Local Experiences in Understanding Violence in Conflict.” Peacebuilding 7 (2): 210–25.

Authors: Rachel Julian, Berit Bliesemann de Guevara, Robin Redhead

Abstract:

Critical peace and conflict scholars argue that to understand fully conflict dynamics and possibilities for peace research should incorporate ‘the local’. Yet this important conceptual shift is bound by western concepts, while empirical explorations of ‘the local’ privilege outside experts over mechanisms for inclusion. This article explores how an epistemology drawing on feminist approaches to conflict analysis can help to redirect the focus from expert to experiential knowledge, thereby also demonstrating the limits of expert knowledge production on ‘the local’. In order to illustrate our arguments and suggest concrete methods of putting them into research practice, we draw on experiences of the ‘Raising Silent Voices’ project in Myanmar, which relied on feminist and arts-based methods to explore the experiential knowledge of ordinary people living amidst violent conflict in Rakhine and Kachin states.

Keywords: feminism, local knowledge, experiential knowledge, conflict analysis, arts-based methods, violent conflict

Topics: Conflict, Feminisms, Peacebuilding Regions: Asia, Southeast Asia Countries: Myanmar

Year: 2019

Citation:

Väyrynen, Tarja. 2019. “Mundane Peace and the Politics of Vulnerability: A Nonsolid Feminist Research Agenda.” Peacebuilding 7 (2): 146–59.

Author: Tarja Väyrynen

Abstract:

This article draws on critical feminist theorising and post-colonial theories of the body, relatedness, vulnerability and the everyday to offer an alternative framing of peace and suggest a new research agenda. Although there are multiple ontologies in feminist peace theory, the concern for marginalisation and the understanding of the relational and vulnerable nature of human existence are the key contributions that enable a new take on mundane practices of peace. The article argues that traditional ways of thinking about peace ignore the notion that peace is best studied as an event that arises within mundane and corporeal encounters. Furthermore, the article provides a novel take on eventness that centers peace in the lives of ordinary people, and develops the concept of choreography as a means to grasp the richness and fluidity of the everyday techniques of interaction that are relevant for peace.

Keywords: peace, mundane, gender, feminist theory, vulnerability

Topics: Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Feminisms, Gender, Peacebuilding

Year: 2019

Citation:

McLeod, Laura, and Maria O’Reilly. 2019. “Critical Peace and Conflict Studies: Feminist Interventions.” Peacebuilding 7 (2): 127–45.

Authors: Laura McLeod, Maria O’Reilly

Abstract:

Critical Peace and Conflict Studies (PCS) as a field cares about gender. Yet, feminist work frequently receives token acknowledgement by critical scholars rather than sustained engagement and analysis. This Special Issue demonstrates why critical PCS needs feminist epistemologies, methodologies, and empirical analyses. In this introductory article, we deploy a feminist genealogical analysis of the ‘four generations’ of PCS and argue that the ghettoization of ‘gender issues’ marginalises feminist work within academia, policy, and practice. Critical PCS research has taken inspiration from feminist scholars, however there remain opportunities for deeper conversations. Addressing this marginalisation matters if we wish to decolonise PCS and develop a nuanced sensory perception of peace and conflict. Furthermore, engaging with feminist ideas can directly contribute to building more meaningful, sustainable, and equitable forms of peace. In short: feminist insights are crucial to prompting a deeper and more transformative dialogue within the scholarship and practice of critical PCS.

Keywords: gender, peacebuilding, feminism, peace and conflict studies (PCS), four generations

Topics: Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Conflict, Feminisms, Gender, Post-Conflict, Peacebuilding

Year: 2019

Citation:

Porter, Elisabeth. 2016. “Feminists Building Peace and Reconciliation: Beyond Post-Conflict.” Peacebuilding 4 (2): 210–25.

Author: Elisabeth Porter

Abstract:

Many feminists find the concept of ‘post-conflict’ troubling for two main reasons. First, the discursive space of post-conflict is contestable with fuzzy lines around when the conflict period becomes post-conflict. Second, for women, the period following the cessation of armed aggression continues to be one of insecurity, where intimate partner violence often remains high, particularly when male ex-combatants return from fighting. In the so-called post-conflict period, a culture of gendered violence, gendered insecurity and militarisation remains. I argue that the transition from conflict provides opportunities for transformation from a culture of violence to one of peace, from insecurity to security and from antagonism to reconciliation. This article outlines a four-fold conceptualisation of reconciliation as a spectrum, reconciling relationships, processes and cultures of reconciliation. To move beyond gender-blind notions of post-conflict, the article seeks to decipher what is uniquely feminist about these ideas in affirming feminist peacebuilding and reconciliation.

Keywords: feminist peacebuilding, gendered violence, insecurity, post-conflict, reconciliation

Topics: Combatants, Male Combatants, Domestic Violence, Feminisms, Gender, Gender-Based Violence, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militarization, Peacebuilding, Post-Conflict, Security, Violence

Year: 2016

Citation:

Johnston, Melissa Frances. 2017. “Beyond Hybridity: A Feminist Political Economy of Timor-Leste’s Problematic Post-Conflict Peacebuilding.” Paper presented at International Studies Association Annual Convention 2017, Baltimore, February 22-25.

Author: Melissa Frances Johnston

Abstract:

Hybrid theories of peacebuilding explain the problematic outcomes of intervention as a result of a hybrid between the aims and norms of ‘liberal’ internationals and ‘non-liberal’ locals. This paper critiques such theories via a case study of East Timor post-conflict peacebuilding. Using a feminist political economy approach, and drawing on extensive primary data, the paper argues that there are no discrete groups of ‘liberal’ interveners and ‘local’ subjects, or any hybrids thereof. Problematic results cannot be located in hybrid peacebuilding. Rather, it explains how an elite class coalition has risen to dominate the post-conflict East Timorese state relying on a highly gendered allocation of the country’s petroleum fund resources. This gendered access to resources has allowed the elite coalition to shore up materially exploitative patriarchal relations, strongest among the rural base, and to consolidate a fragile, yet historically resilient, socio-political coalition crucial to its rule.

Topics: Class, Feminisms, Feminist Political Economy, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Peacebuilding, Post-Conflict Regions: Oceania Countries: Timor-Leste

Year: 2017