Secessionist Wars

Citation:

Rosa, Burç. 2020. "Non-territorial Autonomy and Gender Equality: The Case of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria – Rojava." Filozofija i drustvo 31 (3): 319-339.

Author: Burç Rosa

Abstract:

The Kurdish-led autonomous entity called Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (NES) - also known as Rojava - considers women’s liberation an imperative condition for shaping a democratic society. The practice of autonomy in NES shares strong resemblances with Non- Territorial Autonomy (NTA) models; however, it introduces a novelty in the role of women as active agents in building a plurinational democracy. This paper examines (1) the intellectual and political origins of the political role ascribed to women in autonomous administrations and (2) how the practice of autonomy in Rojava has advanced women’s rights by shedding light on both institutional implementation of women’s rights, as well as the creation of (non)-territorial spaces of women’s emancipation within the autonomous model. The argument made is that the conceptual framework of the Rojava model goes beyond the Kurdish question and can be considered an attempt to resolve a democratic deficit of liberal democratic nation-states through bringing together solutions that address the intertwined subordination of minorities and women.

Keywords: women, representation, plurinational democracy, non-territorial autonomy, Kurdish question, Syria, Rojava, minorities

Topics: Armed Conflict, Secessionist Wars, Democracy / Democratization, Governance, Political Participation, Rights, Women's Rights Regions: MENA, Asia, Middle East Countries: Syria

Year: 2020

Citation:

Çağlayan Handan. 2020. "Kurdish Women as Political Agents: Kurdish Political Movement, Gender Equality, and Women’s Freedom." In Women in the Kurdish Movement: Mothers, Comrades, Goddesses. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

Author: Handan Çağlayan

Annotation:

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkarên Kurdistan, PKK) was founded in 1978 with the goal to establish an independent socialist Kurdistan state. The party has since changed radically ideologically, politically, programmatically, and organizationally. In this process, one of the most significant axes of continuity during the PKK’s history is the principle of gender equality. The PKK’s approach to this offered opportunity spaces for women’s political participation while being simultaneously transformed through their participation. It had already included women members before becoming a political party, similar to the socialist youth organizations of the 1970s. Women, although in small numbers, participated in the PKK’s founding congress in 1978 and remained involved in its subsequent activities.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Ethnic/Communal Wars, Secessionist Wars, Political Participation Regions: MENA, Asia, Middle East

Year: 2020

Citation:

Ali, Nada Mustafa. 2011. Gender and Statebuilding in South Sudan. 298. Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace. 

Author: Nada Mustafa Ali

Annotation:

Summary:
"South Sudan’s independence ends decades of conflict as well as socioeconomic and political marginalization at the hands of successive governments in Khartoum, which affected women in gender-specific ways. Independence thus opens up opportunities for women’s economic and social empowerment, ensuring that the new country’s political and economic structures and institutions reflect commitments to women’s participation and human rights. In turn, empowering women will enable South Sudan to strengthen its economic and political structures and institutions.

There is great potential for gender equality and respect for women’s rights in South Sudan. The government has expressed commitments to equality between women and men and to women’s participation. South Sudan is relatively egalitarian and lacking in religious extremism. International actors interested in South Sudan recognize that promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment and addressing gender-based violence (GBV) are key to maintaining peace and security and helping South Sudan’s economy grow.

Challenges abound, however. South Sudan is severely lacking in infrastructure and has some of the worst human development indicators worldwide. Social and cultural practices harmful to women compound the effects of conflict and marginalization. There are constant internal and external security threats, a limited understanding of gender equality, and a tendency within communities to view gender as an alien and illegitimate concern, given the acute problems that South Sudan faces.

The government of South Sudan, with the support of regional partners and the international community, should ensure that gender equality and women’s rights are fully integrated into and are outcomes of state building. National planning, developing the permanent constitution, and building the country’s new institutions and structures should reflect commitments to gender equality and input from women and women’s groups across South Sudan. The government should cost and meet the full budgetary needs of the Ministry of Gender, Child, and Welfare; ratify and implement the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women and the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa; strengthen efforts to prevent GBV and address the needs of GBV victims and survivors; and invest more in quality and accessible health and education” (Ali 2011, 1-2).

Topics: Armed Conflict, Secessionist Wars, Economies, Gender, Gender-Based Violence, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Governance, Post-Conflict Governance, International Organizations, Livelihoods, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Africa, East Africa Countries: South Sudan

Year: 2011

Citation:

Mougoué, Jacqueline-Bethel Tchouta. 2018. "Gender and (Militarized) Secessionist Movements in Africa: An African Feminist's Reflections." Meridians 17 (2): 338-58.

Author: Jacqueline-Bethel Tchouta Mougoué

Abstract:

Utilizing interdisciplinary and multimethodological approaches, this essay explores women’s roles in buttressing the political cohesion of secessionist movements in postcolonial Africa. It argues that African women have supported the actions of male-dominated secessionist movements in order to garner their own social and political power. Using case studies from Anglophone Cameroon, Western Sahara, Cabinda Province (Angola), and Biafra (Nigeria), the essay historicizes and outlines a new analytical framework that explores women’s multifaceted participation in secessionist movements in modern-day Africa.

Keywords: gender, secessionism, Cameroon, Cabinda, Western Sahara, Biafra

Topics: Armed Conflict, Secessionist Wars, Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Political Participation Regions: Africa, Central Africa, North Africa, West Africa Countries: Angola, Cameroon, Nigeria, Western Sahara

Year: 2018

Citation:

Hakena, Helen, Peter Ninnes, and Bert Jenkins, eds. 2006. NGOs and Post-Conflict Recovery: The Leitana Nehan Women’s Development Agency, Bougainville. Canberra: ANU E Press and Asia Pacific Press.

Authors: Helen Hakena, Bert A. Jenkins, Peter Ninnes

Annotation:

Topics: Armed Conflict, Ethnic/Communal Wars, Secessionist Wars, Development, Gender, Women, Conflict, Humanitarian Assistance, NGOs, Peacebuilding, Post-Conflict, Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Oceania Countries: Papua New Guinea

Year: 2006

Citation:

Visweswaran, Kamala, ed. 2013. Everyday Occupations: Experiencing Militarism in South Asia and the Middle East. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 

Author: Kamala Visweswaran

Annotation:

Summary:
In the twenty-first century, political conflict and militarization have come to constitute a global social condition rather than a political exception. Military occupation increasingly informs the politics of both democracies and dictatorships, capitalist and formerly socialist regimes, raising questions about its relationship to sovereignty and the nation-state form. Israel and India are two of the world's most powerful postwar democracies yet have long-standing military occupations. Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Turkey have passed through periods of military dictatorship, but democracy has yielded little for their ethnic minorities who have been incorporated into the electoral process. Sri Lanka and Bangladesh (like India, Pakistan, and Turkey) have felt the imprint of socialism; declarations of peace after long periods of conflict in these countries have not improved the conditions of their minority or indigenous peoples but rather have resulted in "violent peace" and remilitarization. Indeed, the existence of standing troops and ongoing state violence against peoples struggling for self-determination in these regions suggests the expanding and everyday nature of military occupation. Such everydayness raises larger issues about the dominant place of the military in society and the social values surrounding militarism.

Everyday Occupations examines militarization from the standpoints of both occupier and occupied. With attention to gender, poetics, satire, and popular culture, contributors who have lived and worked in occupied areas in the Middle East and South Asia explore what kinds of society are foreclosed or made possible by militarism. The outcome is a powerful contribution to the ethnography of political violence. (Summary from University of Pennsylvania Press)

Topics: Armed Conflict, Occupation, Secessionist Wars, Conflict, Ethnicity, Gender, Women, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militarization, Violence Regions: MENA, Asia, Middle East, South Asia, Europe, Southern Europe Countries: Bangladesh, India, Israel, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Turkey

Year: 2013

Citation:

Kemoklidze, Nino. 2009. “Victimisation of Female Suicide Bombers: The Case of Chechnya.” Caucasian Review of International Affairs 3 (2): 181-88.

Author: Nino Kemoklidze

Abstract:

While arguing about why women fight, many believe that these women are yet other victims in the hands of ruthless men, while others emphasize the seriousness of a particular conflict where even women are driven towards taking up arms, seen as a last resort in the eyes of many. Few, if any, confront this ever present “myth” of victimisation of women who choose radical forms of fighting. This paper will challenge this viewpoint and, based on the case of the so-called Black Widows of Chechnya, will argue that women can take up roles other than that of a victim in the battlefields; and that they are capable of fighting for a purpose other than that of a personal tragedy and/or family bereavement.

Keywords: gender, violence, nationalism, female suicide bombers, Chechnya

Topics: Armed Conflict, Secessionist Wars, Combatants, Female Combatants, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Nationalism, Sexual Violence, Female Perpetrators, Violence Regions: Asia, Europe Countries: Russian Federation

Year: 2009

Citation:

Eichler, Maya. 2006. "Russia's Post-Communist Transformation: A Gendered Analysis of the Chechen Wars." International Feminist Journal of Politics 8 (4): 486-511.

Author: Maya Eichler

Abstract:

This article develops a gendered analysis of the Chechen wars (1994-6, 1999-present) in the context of Russia's post-communist transformation. I argue that the leadership used the first war to associate itself with a notion of militarized, ordered, patriotic Russian masculinity in juxtaposition to a notion of destabilizing, aggressive, criminal Chechen masculinity. Justification for the second war additionally relied on constructed differences between civilized, modern Russian masculinity and terrorist, fundamentalist Chechen masculinity. However, men's evasion of conscription as well as women's anti-conscription and anti-war organizing as soldiers' mothers have undermined the Russian state's ability to wage war and use it as a strategy of legitimation. While the second war initially had considerably more popular support than the first, the crisis in militarized masculinity has not been resolved and soldiers' mothers continue to challenge notions of patriotic motherhood. The article demonstrates that a gendered analysis improves our understanding of the state's decision to go to war, its justifications for war and citizens' responses to war.

Keywords: conscription, militarization, militarized masculinity, patriotic motherhood, russia, soldiers' mothers

Annotation:

Topics: Armed Conflict, Secessionist Wars, Combatants, Gender, Masculinity/ies, Gender Analysis Regions: Asia, Europe Countries: Russian Federation

Year: 2006

Citation:

De Mel, Neloufer. 2004. “Body Politics: (Re)Cognising the Female Suicide Bomber in Sri Lanka.” Indian Journal of Gender Studies 11 (1): 75-92.

Author: Neloufer De Mel

Abstract:

The suicide bomber has been one of the most potent weapons of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in its 19-year separatist armed struggle against the Sri Lankan state. Of the 217 suicide attacks to date, 46 have been by women. This paper will analyse the representations of the LTTE female suicide bomber in literature, propaganda, public debate and state security practice. It will argue that a discourse of morality already attenuating the act of suicide bombing lends itself to a particlarly gendered representation of the female suicide bomber that invariably twins her body to sexuality, in a scripting that also enables a patriarchal surveillance of her by the state and the LTTE.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Secessionist Wars, Combatants, Female Combatants, Gender, Women, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Non-State Armed Groups Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Sri Lanka

Year: 2004

Citation:

Gottschall, Jonathan. 2004. “Explaining Wartime Rape.” Journal of Sex Research 41 (2): 129–36. doi:10.1080/00224490409552221.

Author: Jonathan Gottschall

Abstract:

In the years since the first reports of mass rapes in the Yugoslavian wars of secession and the genocidal massacres in Rwanda, feminist activists and scholars, human rights organizations, journalists, and social scientists have dedicated unprecedented efforts to document, explain, and seek solutions for the phenomenon of wartime rape. While contributors to this literature agree on much, there is no consensus on causal factors. This paper provides a brief overview of the literature on wartime rape in historical and ethnographical societies and a critical analysis of the four leading explanations for its root causes: the feminist theory, the cultural pathology theory, the strategic rape theory, and the biosocial theory. The paper concludes that the biosocial theory is the only one capable of bringing all the phenomena associated with wartime rape into a single explanatory context.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Ethnic/Communal Wars, Secessionist Wars, Gender, Genocide, Justice, War Crimes, Sexual Violence, Rape Regions: Africa, Central Africa, East Africa, Europe, Balkans Countries: Rwanda, Yugoslavia (former)

Year: 2004