Rebel governance of marriage and sexuality : an intersectional approach

Extant research links forced marriage and sexual violence in rebel groups with their respective political projects, social control, and group cohesion. However, forced marriage and sexual violence are rare in many rebel groups, including the Maoists in Nepal who claimed to have a "progressive,""scientific,"and "modern"framework for governing marriage and sexuality. In the light of this puzzle, I ask, what does a noncoercive/nonviolent rebel governance of marriage and sexuality mean for a rebel group's political project of social control and power? What is the gendered impact of such governance? Importantly, how does it impact female combatants at the intersection of multiple oppressions? Using abductive analysis of extensive interviews with female ex-combatants and their leaders, I build a theoretical explanation about the noncoercive/nonviolent governance of marriage and sexuality that is not just linked to the formation, consolidation, and legitimation of political agendas, but also enabled social control and political power for the Maoists. However, this further marginalized those female combatants who were already disadvantaged. I employ a feminist intersectional framework while critically reflecting on my own positionality. The implications of these findings extend beyond Nepal, illuminating dynamics of rebel governance and the complexity of war and postwar social organization.Peer reviewe

Do all women combatants experience war and peace uniformly? Intersectionality and women combatants

Do women combatants experience war and post-war “peace” in the same way? Existing studies on gender and war treat women combatants as a homogeneous group with similar identities, interests, and statuses experiencing the war uniformly. I argue that women combatants’ experiences of war and post-war “peace” cannot be detached from their multiple statuses, positions, and identities. I follow the stories of five women ex-combatants in the Maoist insurgency in Nepal at different spatial and temporal spaces out of thirty-nine semi-structured interviews that I conducted in Nepal (2017–2018). The women ex-combatants come from the same rank but from different caste, class, ethnicity, marital status, social status, education status, and geographical location. I use a feminist intersectional framework inspired by “matrix of domination” while using intersectionality also as a method. My research shows that women ex-combatants’ experiences of the insurgency and post-insurgency lives have been molded by their intersectional positions and identities in complex ways. This work not only contributes to the holistic understanding of the war in its complexity but also has implications for designing the policy interventions aimed at the prevention of armed conflict and building sustainable post-war “peace.”Peer reviewe

More men die from COVID-19 in Nepal, but who suffers most?

More men catch and die from COVID-19 in Nepal, just as elsewhere, writes Keshab Giri (University of Sydney). But the pandemic’s impact on women has been devastating. We need to look beyond case numbers and mortality rates when we assess the effects and how to tackle them

A decolonial feminist politics of fieldwork : centering community, reflexivity, and loving accountability

International studies scholarship has benefitted from insights from anthropology, peace and conflict studies, geography, and other disciplines to craft a thoughtful set of reflections and considerations for researchers to take with them “into the field” when they embark on “fieldwork.” In this essay, we map out a history of critical approaches to fieldwork, starting with the encounters that initially encouraged reflection on the positionality of the researcher and the power dynamics of research. Building on decolonial feminist scholarship, we show how a commitment to reflexive practice “in the field” has developed further, through a reflection on the self as a researcher and on “the field” as a construct. This ethical and political commitment prompts a rethinking of key concepts in fieldwork (and research more generally), including those of “the researcher,” “the research participant” (or “population”), “expertise,” and what constitutes “data” and “knowledge.” We argue that a preferable approach to critical fieldwork is grounded in feminist and decolonial, anti-racist, anti-capitalist politics. This approach is committed not just to reflecting critically on “the field” and the interactions of the researcher within it but also to challenging the divisions, exclusions, and structures of oppression that sustain the separations between “here” and “there,” “researcher” and “researched,” and “knower" and “known.”Peer reviewe

Funding precarity and women's peace work in Colombia, Nepal, and Northern Ireland

The study was funded by the UKRI GCRF Gender, Justice, 1065 and Security Hub (grant ID AH/S004025/1) and approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee at the University of Sydney (project number 2020/660).Civil society supports peace work in many ways, including through education, advocacy, health outreach, data gathering, expertise- and experience-sharing, event-running, community mobilization, conflict prevention, and peacebuilding. However, there are limited funds available to support this work, even though key development, peace, and security actors, including the United Nations Secretary-General, have acknowledged that developing the capacity of civil society to support peacebuilding efforts required increased investment. Scarcity of funding has created important political dynamics that affect the work that civil society can do. This study uses a qualitative semi-structured interview design to elicit information about donor funding dynamics and imperatives from expert research informants across three conflict-affected countries: Colombia, Nepal, and Northern Ireland. We explore funding dynamics, various organizational features that influence mobilization strategies, and the impact of COVID-19 on women's civil society groups working on peacebuilding. We argue that, while it is an ongoing concern, scarcity of funding is not the only inhibitor to effective peace work. Donor priorities, and embedded assumptions about the value of peace work—largely undertaken by women and women-led organizations—also challenge the viability of continued efforts toward sustainable peace.Peer reviewe

Growth status, curd yield and crop duration of late season cauliflower varieties

Cauliflower is an important winter season vegetable crop having year-round demand in Nepal. Due to longer crop duration in late winter season, there was a production of poor-quality curds and lower yield faced by the farmers in Terai region of Nepal. An experiment was conducted to identify the short duration late season varieties at Rampur, Chitwan Nepal during November 2016 to March, 2017. These varieties were Freedom, Titan, Ravella, Amazing, Artica, Bishop, Casper, Indam 9803 and NS 106 (introduced from USA, Europe and India), and Snow Mystique and Snowball 16 (introduced from Japan). The experiment was laid out in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with four replications. The highest plant height (71.9 cm) and canopy diameter (74.5 cm) at last harvest of cauliflower was mostly produced by Titan followed by NS 106, Snow Mystique, Bishop and Indam 9803. Similarly, significantly shorter period for final curd initiation of 65 days after transplanting was observed in Freedom and shorter period for final curd maturation of 77 days after transplanting was also recorded in Freedom than other varieties. Significantly, higher curd yield of 54.8 t/ha was produced by Bishop than other varieties. In conclusion, Bishop was the best hybrid variety while other suitable varieties were NS 106, Titan, Artica and Snow Mystique for better growth and higher curd yield in Chitwan condition. Similarly, Freedom was identified as short duration varieties which can minimize the negative effects in late winter season due to higher temperature

Can men do feminist fieldwork and research?

This article systematically explores key theoretical and political, and epistemological and methodological considerations regarding men undertaking feminist fieldwork and research. This has become increasingly relevant as men working on exploring the gendered analysis of armed conflict and peacebuilding has become relatively routine recently. Yet, there is a dearth of systematic research on this topic. To fill this gap, this article asks two central questions: Can men do feminist fieldwork and research in conflict/post-conflict settings? What are the requirements for this? Drawing from my experience as a heterosexual cis male doing fieldwork on female combatants in a post-conflict setting in Nepal (2017-2018) and building on the long-standing robust scholarly conversation on desirability and possibility of men in feminist research and activism, the article argues that critical self-reflexivity with honesty on limitation and partiality of research, situated knowledge, and positionality and power including ethics of care, moral responsibility, and reciprocity are key considerations for men to engage in feminist fieldwork and research. While gender is a primary concern for men researching on women, there is "multiplex subjectivity"(race, class, caste, ethnicity, nationality, and education) interacting with gender creating complex relational power dynamics before/during/after the fieldwork to influence the research process and outcome.</p