Peacebuilding

Negotiating Contextually Contingent Agency: Situated Feminist Peacebuilding Strategies in Kenya

Citation:

Collier, Mary Jane, Brandi Lawless, and Karambu Ringera. 2016. “Negotiating Contextually Contingent Agency: Situated Feminist Peacebuilding Strategies in Kenya.” Women’s Studies in Communication 39 (4): 399–421.

Authors: Mary Jane Collier, Brandi Lawless, Karambu Ringera

Abstract:

This study identifies an emergent framework for situated feminist peacebuilding based on interviews with representatives of community-based organizations in Kenya. We offer situated examples and firsthand accounts of how these women navigate different challenging spaces, wrestle with the relationships between macro-, meso-, and microcontextual factors, and negotiate agency- and systems-level change within patriarchal and politically changing contexts. We also demonstrate the necessity for international collaborators to apply critical reflexivity throughout all phases of research praxis. Our analysis has important implications for studying feminist peacebuilding situated in Kenya in particular, as well as for analyzing agency, structural and systemic change, patriarchy, the navigation of intersectional cultural differences, and intercultural relations more generally.
 

Keywords: agency, Kenya, peacebuilding, situated feminism

Topics: Feminisms, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Intersectionality, Peacebuilding Regions: Africa, East Africa Countries: Kenya

Year: 2016

The (In)Security of Gender in Afghanistan’s Peacebuilding Project: Hybridity and Affect

Citation:

Partis-Jennings, Hannah. 2017. “The (In)Security of Gender in Afghanistan’s Peacebuilding Project: Hybridity and Affect.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 19 (4): 411–25.

Author: Hannah Partis-Jennings

Abstract:

In this article I draw on a feminist approach to hybridity to explore interview data and observations from my field research in Afghanistan. I argue that there is a logic of masculinist protection influencing the affective environment of the peacebuilding project there. The combination of a perceived patriarchal context in Afghanistan and security routines protecting civilian internationals (and Afghan elites), which rely on hypermasculine signifiers, help to create and perpetuate the conditions in which the female (for both internationals and Afghans) is marked with insecurity. I point to hybridity between the foreign and female experience, as well as resistance and reflexivity within my research. Throughout I explore fragments of power hierarchies that cut through the meaning of gender, rendering the female state a disempowering one, always referenced in some uncertain, hybrid way as protected or in need of protection.
 

Keywords: peacebuilding, Afghanistan, hybridity, masculinist protection, affect

Topics: Feminisms, Gender, Masculinity/ies, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Masculinism, Peacebuilding, Security Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Afghanistan

Year: 2017

Soft Power and a Feminist Ethics of Peacebuilding in Africa

Citation:

Isike, Christopher. 2017. “Soft Power and a Feminist Ethics of Peacebuilding in Africa.” Peace Review 29 (3): 350–7.

Author: Christopher Isike

Annotation:

Summary:
"It can be argued that the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States was a turning point in the global understanding of power, as it heralded a shift from conceptualizing power in its hard to soft sense as scholars such as Giulo Gallarotti have argued. Generally, soft power refers to a state’s ability to shape the preferences of others through intangible assets such as an attractive personality, culture, political values and institutions, and policies that are seen as legitimate or having moral authority. The increasing feminization of politics and power across the globe, and which Africa appears to fully embrace, presents a soft power resource which the continent can leverage as a political value to get recognition and admiration in the areas of global governance and peacebuilding. African women have a rich and long history of playing frontal roles in governance and peacebuilding in the continent that dates back to the precolonial era, and in spite of the disruptive effects of colonialism, they remain vital agents of moral and social regeneration, good governance, and sustainable peace in Africa. The following succinctly analyses the nexus between soft power, women, and peacebuilding in Africa with a view to teasing out a theoretical justification for an African feminist ethics of peacebuilding, which can be developed as a soft power resource for the continent" (Isike 2017, 350). 

Topics: Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Governance, Peacebuilding Regions: Africa

Year: 2017

The Use of ICTs in Conflict and Peacebuilding: A Feminist Analysis

Citation:

Brown, Clare. 2018. “The Use of ICTs in Conflict and Peacebuilding: A Feminist Analysis.” Australian Feminist Law Journal 44 (1): 137–53.

Author: Clare Brown

Abstract:

The past five years have seen a rapid increase in international attention on and donor funding for the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) – including Internet platforms, social media, and mobile phone apps – in responding to conflict. With the notable exception of the role of women on social media during the Arab Spring, very little has been written about the use of and focus on these technologies from a feminist perspective. This article will argue that both the objectives of and strategies employed by conflict-related ICTs must be subjected to feminist analysis so as to mitigate the risk that the rush to support, develop, and implement projects in this field are not ultimately damaging to women. It will discuss three of the main purposes of the use of ICTs in conflict: to shape and send messages; to track, store, and distribute information; and to collect evidence. It will also consider three of their primary objectives: to prevent conflict; to assist civilians and decision makers in responding to conflict; and to increase justice and accountability. It will argue that gendered assumptions underlie both the execution of these methods and the way in which these objectives have been understood. Finally, it will make some general recommendations as to how some of these challenges may be better responded to by academics, actors, and donors in the humanitarian field.

Topics: Conflict, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Infrastructure, Information & Communication Technologies, Humanitarian Assistance, Justice, Peacebuilding

Year: 2018

Decolonising Gender and Peacebuilding: Feminist Frontiers and Border Thinking in Africa

Citation:

Hudson, Heidi. 2016. “Decolonising Gender and Peacebuilding: Feminist Frontiers and Border Thinking in Africa.” Peacebuilding 4 (2): 194–209.

Author: Heidi Hudson

Abstract:

The article seeks to theorise an integrated decolonised feminist frame for peacebuilding in an African context. Arguing that a decolonial-feminist lens has the potential to change the way we look at peacebuilding practices, I propose the notion of ‘feminist frontiers’ – an engaged yet stabilising heuristic tool for analysing racialised and gendered relations post-conflict. The argument is structured around three pillars, namely: metageographies as metaphoric mental-space constructions of a colonial peace; masks that constrain the introduction of complicated and intersected human subjecthoods; and mundane matter that elicits ambivalent engagements between human and post-human subjectivities in the areas of everyday political economies and infrastructural rule of peacebuilding. I conclude that such feminist frontiers represent intermediate and mediated spaces or epistemological borderlands from where the undertheorised and empirically understudied discursive and material dimensions of peacebuilding from a gender perspective can be investigated.

Keywords: decoloniality, gender, peacebuilding, Africa, intersectionality, feminist

Topics: Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Feminisms, Feminist Political Economy, Gender, Infrastructure, Intersectionality, Political Economies, Post-Conflict, Peacebuilding, Race Regions: Africa

Year: 2016

"When 'Gender' Started": the United Nations in Post-Occupation Timor-Leste

Citation:

Smith, Sarah. 2015. "When 'Gender' Started: The United Nations in Post-Occupation Timor-Leste." Global Change, Peace & Security 27 (1): 55-67.

Author: Sarah Smith

Abstract:

This article examines gender mainstreaming processes in successive UN peacebuilding missions in Timor-Leste, with a focus on the relationship between these missions and the national women's organizations who were vehicles for implementation. Apparent frictions occur in this process and the article suggests that the gender rhetoric and practice incorporated into UN peacebuilding since 2000 can have potentially destabilizing effects for women's activism in post-conflict settings. Women's organizations socialize and negotiate around gender norms in order to mitigate this potential and aim to identify the synergies between women's activism before peacebuilding, and gender mainstreaming policies and practice post-conflict. This article provides insight into how national women's organizations socialize gender norms, as well as how women's post-conflict activism can be shaped by the presence of UN peacebuilding.

Keywords: gender, United Nations, peacebuilding, Timor-Leste

Topics: Gender, Gender Roles, Gender Mainstreaming, International Organizations, Post-Conflict, Peacebuilding, Peacekeeping Regions: Oceania Countries: Timor-Leste

Year: 2015

Liberal–Local Peacebuilding in Solomon Islands and Bougainville: Advancing a Gender-Just Peace?

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

Gendered Political Settlements and Peacebuilding: Mapping Inclusion in Practice

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

UNSC Resolution 1325 National Action Plans in Liberia and Sierra Leone: An Analysis of Gendered Power Relations in Hybrid Peacebuilding

Citation:

Ryan, Caitlin, and Helen Basini. 2017. "UNSC Resolution 1325 National Action Plans in Liberia and Sierra Leone: An Analysis of Gendered Power Relations in Hybrid Peacebuilding."Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 11 (2): 186-206. 

Authors: Caitlin Ryan, Helen Basini

Abstract:

This paper considers how the use of ‘hybridity’ in the peacebuilding literature overlooks the gendered dimensions of hybrid interactions. It does so by examining the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1325 national action plans (NAPs) for Liberia and Sierra Leone. By asking the gendered questions of ‘who participates?’ and ‘how do they participate?’ it draws from Mac Ginty’s conception of hybridity and traces the compliance and incentivizing power in hybridized peace, as well as the ability of local actors to resist and provide alternatives. However, Mac Ginty’s model is found to be inadequate because of its inattention to the gendered nature of power. It is found that with a gendered approach to hybridity, it is easier to trace the processes of hybridization of NAPs in post-conflict states where their implementation is limited. In asking the questions of ‘who’ and ‘how’, three conclusions about the gendered nature of hybrid peacebuilding are drawn: international intervention relies upon the ‘feminization’ of local actors; issues framed within the realm of the ‘masculine’ are more likely to get attention; and the Resolution 1325 agenda in post-conflict states can be subverted by framing it as a ‘soft’ issue.

Keywords: UNSC Res. 1325, hybrid peace, Liberia, Sierra Leone, National Action Plans

Topics: Gender, Masculinity/ies, Femininity/ies, Gendered Power Relations, Peacebuilding, Peace Processes, Post-Conflict, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, UNSCR 1325 Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Liberia, Sierra Leone

Year: 2017

Gendering Peace: UN Peacebuilding in Timor-Leste

Citation:

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

Author: Sarah Smith

Annotation:

Summary: 
In 1999, after 24-years of violent military occupation by Indonesian forces, the small country of Timor-Leste became host to one of the largest UN peace operations. The operation rested on a liberal paradigm of statehood, including nascent ideas on gender in peacebuilding processes. This book provides a critical feminist examination of the form and function of a gendered peace in Timor-Leste. Drawing on policy documents and field research in Timor-Leste with national organisations, international agencies and UN staff, the book examines gender policy with a feminist lens, exploring and developing a more complex account of ‘gender’ and ‘women’ in peace operations. It argues that gendered ideologies and power delimit the possibilities of building a gender-just peace, and contributes deep insight into how gendered logics inform peacebuilding processes, and specifically how these play out through the implementation of policy that explicitly seeks to reorder gender relations at sites in which peace operations deploy. By utilising a single case study, the book provides space to examine both international and national discourses, and contextualises its analysis of Women, Peace and Security within local histories and contexts. This book will be of interested to scholars and students of gender studies, global governance, International Relations, and security studies” (Smith 2018). 
 
Table of Contents: 
1. Introduction 
 
2. Women Resisting, Women Organising
 
3. Participating Women
 
4. Protected Women
 
5. Still resisting, Still Organising
 
6. From Liberal to Post-Liberal Peace

 

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

Year: 2019

Pages

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