"Remember the women of Osiri":Women and gender in artisanal and small-scale mining in Migori County, Kenya

In this paper, we explore women’s livelihoods and the operation of gender norms and structures in the Osiri artisanal gold mining area in western Kenya. While “women” and “gender” are seen as increasingly important to policy frameworks for developing mineral resources on the African continent, understandings of women’s roles in artisanal and small-scale mining, and of the importance of gender in structuring those livelihoods, remain limited. Drawing on field research conducted from 2014 to 2018, we demonstrate that while gender norms and structures operate to delimit women’s mining roles, in daily encounters women and men navigate, resist and sometimes reframe those norms. Further, we explore how gender norms may not impact all women the same and how other social variables, such as age, may also influence how women navigate their mining livelihoods

Response to the Draft of the ‘Global Code of Conduct for Investigating and Documenting Conflict-Related Sexual Violence’

Submission, The Murad Code Project, Institute for International Criminal Investigations and Foreign and Commonwealth Offic

Gender and Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining in Central and East Africa: Barriers and Benefits

Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) on the African continent is increasingly the focus of global, regional and national efforts aimed at regulating the sector as part of larger initiatives to increase national benefits from mining, while also addressing problems seen as linked to this form of mining such as violence and conflict. Women’s significant participation in artisanal mining (estimated at 25-50% or more of artisanal miners) is largely overlooked in these efforts. This paper draws from r

The Virtual Sociality of Rights: The Case of Women\u27s Rights are Human Rights

This essay traces the relationship between activists and academics involved in the campaign for women\u27s rights as human rights as a case study of the relationship between different classes of what I call knowledge professionals self-consciously acting in a transnational domain. The puzzle that animates this essay is the following: how was it that at the very moment at which a critique of rights and a reimagination of rights as rights talk proved to be such fertile ground for academic scholarship did the same rights prove to be an equally fertile ground for activist networking and lobbying activities? The paper answers this question with respect to the work of self-reflexivity in creating a virtual sociality of rights

Finding the homosexual in women's rights

In recent years, organizations on the American Christian Right (CR) have become established actors at the United Nations, working to limit international agreement on developments seen as 'anti-family', such as women's rights, population policy and abortion. At the same time, the Vatican has established itself as a strong voice opposing international law and policy on women's rights. For both actors, women's rights represent a direct challenge to the 'natural family' and hence a particular world vision premised on a sexual division of labour. While women's rights is a central preoccupation for both actors, 'homosexuality' and the prospect of lesbian and gay rights and 'gay marriage' is also a recurrent theme, intricately connected to women's rights. This article explores the relationship between women's rights and homosexuality as drawn by these two actors. It asks why, in an international arena that offers little concrete recognition of, or protection for, lesbian and gay identities both the CR and Vatican are concerned about a presumed homosexual agenda. It also explores what role the debate about women's rights plays in facilitating this 'homosexual agenda'. In addressing these questions, this article seeks to explore, and raise further questions about international women's rights as a language for international discussion about social relations

Crossing the line : feminist international law theory, rape and the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina

In recent years, feminist theory has turned its critical gaze to international law. By challenging the objectivity, neutrality and universality of international law, feminist international law theory offers a new way of thinking about the discipline. Feminist international law theory raises numerous questions not only about the male-centered discipline of international law, but also the scope and nature of its own feminist method. In this thesis, I situate feminist international legal theory in the context of developments within feminist theory generally, which demonstrate the need to ground feminist analysis in the particular experiences of different women. I consider the ways in which feminist international law theory employs theoretical constructs which generalize and essentialize women's experience of oppression along Western lines. By exploring the emphasis in this literature on the public/private divide and sovereignty, I demonstrate the ways in which gender is constructed as the principal site of oppression, missing the complex systems of oppression with which women interact including race/ethnicity, patriarchy, and nationalism. The mass rape of Muslim women in Bosnia-Herzegovina is presented as a case-study for understanding women's complex experiences of oppression and the implications this has for feminist international law theory. During war, different discourses, including law, converge to define particular gender identities, national character and dominant values. International humanitarian law defines how the international community views wartime rape and violence against women. Incorporating dominant ideologies about women, war and rape, international humanitarian law regulates, rather than prohibits, rape. In the context of mass rape in Bosnia- Herzegovina, the applicable international law framework is limited in application to rapes defined as an attack on a community rather than an act of violence against women. Violence against women is constructed as unfortunate but unavoidable. The example of wartime rape demonstrates international law's role in defining and reinforcing gender ideologies. While I conclude that feminist international law theory must continue the project of challenging international law, it must do so from an informed position about international law's complicity in women's global oppression.Law, Peter A. Allard School ofGraduat

Crossing the line : feminist international law theory, rape and the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina

In recent years, feminist theory has turned its critical gaze to international law. By challenging the objectivity, neutrality and universality of international law, feminist international law theory offers a new way of thinking about the discipline. Feminist international law theory raises numerous questions not only about the male-centered discipline of international law, but also the scope and nature of its own feminist method. In this thesis, I situate feminist international legal theory in the context of developments within feminist theory generally, which demonstrate the need to ground feminist analysis in the particular experiences of different women. I consider the ways in which feminist international law theory employs theoretical constructs which generalize and essentialize women\u27s experience of oppression along Western lines. By exploring the emphasis in this literature on the public/private divide and sovereignty, I demonstrate the ways in which gender is constructed as the principal site of oppression, missing the complex systems of oppression with which women interact including race/ethnicity, patriarchy, and nationalism. The mass rape of Muslim women in Bosnia-Herzegovina is presented as a case-study for understanding women\u27s complex experiences of oppression and the implications this has for feminist international law theory. During war, different discourses, including law, converge to define particular gender identities, national character and dominant values. International humanitarian law defines how the international community views wartime rape and violence against women. Incorporating dominant ideologies about women, war and rape, international humanitarian law regulates, rather than prohibits, rape. In the context of mass rape in Bosnia- Herzegovina, the applicable international law framework is limited in application to rapes defined as an attack on a community rather than an act of violence against women. Violence against women is constructed as unfortunate but unavoidable. The example of wartime rape demonstrates international law\u27s role in defining and reinforcing gender ideologies. While I conclude that feminist international law theory must continue the project of challenging international law, it must do so from an informed position about international law\u27s complicity in women\u27s global oppression