Rethinking Masculinity and Practices of Violence in Conflict Settings

An introduction to a special issue of International Feminist Journal of Politics, co-edited with Marsha Henry

Peacexploitation? A study of Indian female peacekeepers

LSE’s Dr Marsha Henry questions whether the deployment of female Indian peacekeepers is evidence of gendered success or globalised exploitation and argues that, in addition to gender, global class, nationality and ethnic and racial formations should also be considered when thinking about the peacekeeping industry

On the necessity of critical race feminism for women, peace and security

This intervention is concerned with whiteness as central to the operation of women/gender, peace and security in academic settings. That is, G/WPS in universities is founded on white authority and expertise and consistently orients itself from the privileged viewpoint of the global north. Through two brief examples, I show how the generation of research on G/WPS consistently centres and relies on white starting points, in order to convey the ‘necessity’ of G/WPS in the university and to government funders. In doing so, the use of critical race theories and Black feminist concepts, as well as the presence of Black scholars, remains marginal

Militarisation as diffusion: the politics of gender, space and the everyday

Drawing together the work of five feminist scholars whose research spans diverse sociopolitical contexts, this themed section questions militarisation as a fixed condition. Using feminist methodologies to explore the spatialised networks and social mechanisms through which militarisation is sustained and resisted, ‘gendering’ militarisation reveals a complex politics of diffusion at work in a range of everyday power relations. However, diffusion acts not as a unidirectional movement across a border, but as the very contingency which makes militarisation – and transformation – possible. Through connecting the empirical and theoretical work on militarisation with feminist geographies, the authors in this collection highlight the influence of military thinking and institutions, not as static structures, but instead as productive sites

Between Fatigue and Silence:The Challenges of Conducting Research on Sexual Violence in Conflict

This paper discusses the meanings of research fatigue and silences in conflict-related sexual violence research. Drawing on field experiences in Liberia, Tanzania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Peru, we discuss some of the unintended consequences of persistent focus on victim-survivors’ narratives and argue for a reflexive feminist perspective that allows us to question the need and context of interviewing survivors and the associated insistence on disclosure

Women and Peacekeeping: Time for the UN to Commit to Gender Equality

UN peacekeepers are deployed to make local populations more safe and secure. They must not be allowed to become another source of insecurity for the people they are sent to serve. Christine Chinkin, Marsha Henry and Aiko Holvikivi on the need for the new UN Secretary-General to commit to gender equality in order to ensure that peacekeeping lives up to its promise

Problematizing military masculinity, intersectionality and male vulnerability in feminist critical military studies

Recent work on the multiplicity of masculinities within specific military contexts deploys the concept of intersectionality in order to draw attention to the hierarchies present in military organizations or to acknowledge male vulnerability in situations of war and conflict. While it is important to examine the breadth and depth of masculinity as an ideology and practice of domination, it is also important for discussions of military masculinity, and intersectionality, to be connected with the ‘originary’ black feminist project from which intersectionality was born. This may indeed reflect a more nuanced and historically attuned account of such concepts as intersectionality, but also black and double consciousness, standpoint and situated knowledges. In particular, what happens when concepts central to feminist theorizing and activism suddenly become of use for studying dominant groups such as male military men? What are our responsibilities in using these concepts in unexpected and perhaps politically questionable ways? This article looks at recent feminist theorizing on intersectionality, and several examples of the use of intersectionality in relation to masculinity and the military, and finally suggests some cautionary ways forward for rethinking militaries, masculinities, and feminist theories

Drawing on the continuum: a war and post-war political economy of gender-based violence in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Current understandings of why and how gender-based violence continues beyond the end of conflict remain siloed along theoretical and disciplinary lines. Recent scholarship has addressed the neglected structural dimension when examining the incidence and variation of post-conflict gender-based violence. In particular, continuum of violence and feminist political economy perspectives have offered accounts of gender-based violence during and after conflict. However, these approaches overlook how war and post-war economic processes interact over time and co-constitute the material basis for the continuation of gender-based violence. The war and post-war political economy perspective that we leverage examines critically the distinction, both in theory and practice, between global and local dynamics, and between formal and informal actors in post-conflict societies. Exposing these neglected structural and historical interconnections with evidence from post-conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina, we demonstrate that the material basis of gender-based violence is a cumulative result of political and socio-economic dynamics along the war-to-peace trajectory. Our findings point to the need to be attentive to the enduring material consequences of interests and incentives formed through war, and to the impact of post-war global governance ideologies that transform local conditions conducive to gender-based violence