Critical Aspects of Gender in Conflict Resolution, Peacebuilding, and Social Movements


Book Description

Investigates gendered aspects of social activism and peacebuilding. This title focuses on the agency of grassroots citizens, refugee, indigenous, and ethnic minority women. It brings gendered aspects of practice that assists scholars and practitioners in research and policy development.




Gender, Peace and Conflict


Book Description

- What impact does gender difference make to political decision-making? - Will the political empowerment of women contribute to a more peaceful world? The role of gender has been increasingly recognized as central to the study and analysis of the traditionally male domains of war and international relations. This book explores the key role of gender in peace research, conflict resolution and international politics. Rather than simply ′add gender′ the aim is to transcend different disciplinary boundaries and conceptual approaches to provide a more integrated basis for future study. To this end it uniquely combines theoretical chapters alongside empirical case studies to demonstrate the importance of a gender perspective to both theory and practice in conflict resolution and peace research. The theoretical chapters explore the gender relationship and engage with the many stereotypical dichotomies like femininity and peace and masculinity and war. The case study chapters (drawing on examples from South America, South Asia and Europe, including former Yugoslavia) move beyond theoretical critique to focus on issues like sexual violence in war, the role of women in military groups and peacekeeping operations and the impact of a ′critical mass′ of women in political decision-making. Gender, Peace and Conflict will provide an invaluable survey and new insights to a central area of contemporary research. It will be essential reading for academics, students and practitioners across peace studies, conflict resolution and international politics.




Women and War


Book Description

Women everywhere have long struggled for recognition as equal, productive members of society, worthy of taking part in the political process. These struggles become even more pronounced in times of conflict and war, when the symbolism and myths of womanhood are used to stoke nationalistic ideas about the survival of the state. Yet for all the rhetoric that takes place in their name, it’s men who generally make decisions regarding war. Women and War examines how women respond to situations of conflict. Drawing on both traditional and feminist international relations theory, it explores the roles that women play before, during and after a conflict, how they spur and respond to nationalist and social movements, and how conceptions of gender are deeply intertwined with ideas about citizenship and the state. As Kaufman and Williams show, women do more than respond to conflict situations; they are active agents in their own right shaping political and historical processes. Their conclusions encourage us to rethink the prevalent assumptions of international relations, history and feminist scholarship and theory.




Gender, Peace and Security


Book Description

This volume explores the implementation of key gender policies in international peace and security, following the adoption of UN Security Council resolution 1325 in October 2000, the first thematic resolution on Women, Peace and Security. How should we understand women’s participation in peace processes and in peace operations? And what forms of gendered security dynamics are present in armed conflict and international interventions? These questions represent central themes of protection and participation that the international community has to address in order to implement UNSCR 1325. Thus far, the implementation has often employed varying approaches related to gender mainstreaming, a third theme of the resolution. Yet, there is a dearth of systematic data which until recently has restricted the ability of researchers to evaluate the progress in implementation and impact of UNSCR 1325. By engaging with both empirics and critical theory, the authors of this edited volume make important contributions to the gender, peace and security agenda. They identify some of the problems of implementing UNSC 1325 and offer a sobering assessment of progress of implementation and insights into how to advance our understanding through systematic research. Many of the chapters are focused on operational aspects of UNSCR 1325, but all also engage with the theoretical underpinnings of UNSCR 1325 to bring forth central debates on more fundamental challenges to the development of knowledge in the fields of gender, peace and security. This book will be of much interest to students of gender studies, peace and conflict studies, security studies and IR in general.




Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change


Book Description

This important collection addresses the critically important dimensions of the relationships that social movements, their activists, and their organizations have with the state and other institutions. It also examines three movements linked by frame and discourse analysis, before concluding with a survey of the biographical trajectory of activism.




Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding in Laos


Book Description

Using the case study of Laos, a small landlocked country in Southeast Asia that has seen some of the world’s most brutal forms of poverty and violence, this book examines the power of traditional and indigenous conflict resolution systems as a tool for social justice. It explores how the conflict resolution mechanisms build infrastructures that support social harmony, and address larger scale conflicts within communities, nations and international arenas. The book discusses how over centuries, foreign powers have polarised and used the ethnic groups of Laos to support their own agendas, and how in spite of this, the Lao people have consistently managed to recreate the peace and harmony that support their social relationships, whether that is within groups or between many distinct groups. Through the development and use of appropriate grassroots conflict resolution structures that do not require a formal court system and exists outside the political arena, they have been successful in resolving conflicts within and across cultural groups. The book shows that the conflict resolution systems of Laos are embedded in the fabric of ordinary, everyday life, and operate independently of the hierarchical structures that dominate governing institutions. Highlighting how peace continues to work its way into existence, through elaborate mediation systems and rituals that bring people together, this book will be of use to students and scholars of Southeast Asian Politics, Peace Studies and War and Conflict Studies.




Routledge Handbook of Feminist Peace Research


Book Description

This handbook provides a comprehensive overview of feminist approaches to questions of violence, justice, and peace. The volume argues that critical feminist thinking is necessary to analyse core peace and conflict issues and is fundamental to thinking about solutions to global problems and promoting peaceful conflict transformation. Contributions to the volume consider questions at the intersection of feminism, gender, peace, justice, and violence through interdisciplinary perspectives. The handbook engages with multiple feminisms, diverse policy concerns, and works with diverse theoretical and methodological contributions. The volume covers the gendered nature of five major themes: • Methodologies and genealogies (including theories, concepts, histories, methodologies) • Politics, power, and violence (including the ways in which violence is created, maintained, and reproduced, and the gendered dynamics of its instantiations) • Institutional and societal interventions to promote peace (including those by national, regional, and international organisations, and civil society or informal groups/bodies) • Bodies, sexualities, and health (including sexual health, biopolitics, sexual orientation) • Global inequalities (including climate change, aid, global political economy). This handbook will be of great interest to students of peace and conflict studies, security studies, feminist studies, gender studies, international relations, and politics. Chapter 9 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.




Gender and Peacebuilding


Book Description

Gender and Peacebuilding offers a comprehensive and up to date analysis of how and why gender matters in contemporary peace operations. It draws on a wide range of examples from across the world to offer a nuanced account of the UN's attempts to mainstream gender into peace operations via Security Council Resolution 1325, and assesses the successes and failures of this effort to enhance the participation and protection of women and girls in peacebuilding operations. In presenting this mixed picture of progress and ongoing challenges, the book argues for bold steps forward that will enable peacebuilding to contest the current neoliberal order, address structural inequalities, and bring about feminist visions of peace and security. It is only by focusing attention on the economic empowerment of women and its ability to temper the dangers of neo-liberalism in post-conflict contexts that feminists can hope to achieve these aims. Timely, critical and engaged, this book provides an invaluable guide to the issues for students of peace and conflict studies, and sets the agenda for future scholarship and advocacy.




Methodological Advances in Research on Social Movements, Conflict, and Change


Book Description

Now that we are almost a quarter of the way into the 21st century, the field of sociology is in need of research like this which explores methods for studying contentious politics in the context of broader social changes to peacebuilding, armed conflicts, and social movements.




Narratives of Identity in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change


Book Description

This volume focuses on analyses of identity and narratives of identity in conflict outbreaks, dynamics, resolution and/or post-conflict peacebuilding and transitional justice.