Gender as a structuring force in conflict and its aftermath: research on international intervention in Afghanistan

Abstract

In this chapter, in line with the wider themes of the Handbook, I argue that in the presence or aftermath of conflict, violence, whether it be represented, threatened, or actual, can only be made sense of through the infrastructure of gender as a performative logic manifested in everyday ways. To explore this, with a particular focus on the two-decade long military and peacebuilding engagement with Afghanistan from 2001–2021, I highlight particular themes of my own work, and wider feminist research, namely masculinities in conflict and its aftermath, and gender as a structuring force. I seek to show how the complex entanglements between different actors, places, practices, and temporalities around conflict can only be fully elucidated through a feminist lens. At the same time, I reflect on the limitations and misappropriations of feminism in relation to Afghanistan and the need to come to terms with these in future research