Gender And Peacebuilding

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.

The twenty-­first century has brought with it a shift from the notion of human security being located in secure national borders to the need to secure the safety, freedom, and dignity of all. Despite efforts to equalize women’s status in the world evidenced by changes in many international projects requiring a gender focus, women and men experience most of the world in very different ways according to gender. Further, the reality is that humans who do not all fall neatly into one of these categories – male or female – often find their lives further challenged. In the 1980s, Peace and Conflict Studies first began to acknowledge and study the different experiences males and females have during war and peace. Since then, there have been books about women and war, women working at grassroots levels to build peace, women and transitional justice, women and peace education, and women’s views of human security. All of these works have contributed to the discourse of our changing world. This book brings together some of those themes and voices and adds more with the final product being more than the sum of its parts. We add to the conversation a book that considers foundational/fundamental issues that span from the interpersonal to the global. Many of the chapters describe empirical research completed with author and community, shared here for the first time. Part One is a collection of case studies, documenting challenges and responses to peacebuilding by women from various parts of the world. Part Two focuses on Peace and Conflict Studies (PACS) as a discipline, examining not only what is, but also what should be taught. This section critiques today’s efforts at teaching Peace and Conflict Studies and provides suggestions of how this important work might be shared in more open and equitable ways. Part Three enters territory found even less in the PACS literature. In this section our authors confront patriarchy, engage in a discussion about the contribution queer theory makes to PACS, and tussle with the notion of inclusivity with considerations of both gender and disability. It then ends with a discussion about the contribution feminist methodologies make to PACS.

The United Nations Peacebuilding Commission (UNPBC) was established in December 2005 to develop outlines of best practice in post-conflict reconstruction, and to secure the political and material resources necessary to assist states in transition from conflict to peacetime. Currently, the organization is involved in reconstruction and peacebuilding activities in six countries. Yet, a 2010 review by permanent representatives to the United Nations found that the hopes of the UN peacebuilding architecture "despite committed and dedicated efforts...ha[d] yet to be realized." Two of these hopes relate to gender and power, specifically that peacebuilding efforts integrate a "gender perspective" and that the Commission consult with civil society, NGOs, and women's organizations. This book is the first to offer an extensive and dedicated analysis of the activities of the UN Peacebuilding Commission with regard to both gender politics, broadly conceived, and the gendered dynamics of civil society participation in peacebuilding activities. Laura J. Shepherd draws upon original fieldwork that she conducted at the UN to argue that the gendered and spatial politics of peacebuilding not only feminizes civil society organizations, but also perpetuates hierarchies that privilege the international over the domestic realms. The book argues that the dominant representations of women, gender, and civil society in UN peacebuilding discourse produce spatial hierarchies that paradoxically undermine the contemporary emphasis on "bottom-up" governance of peacebuilding activities.

"Gender, age, class, ethnicity, religion, and political ideologies all matter in peacebuilding. Adopting a feminist approach, the 13th volume of International Development Policy analyses such intersecting differences in local contexts to develop a better understanding of how intersectionally gendered dynamics shape and are shaped by peacebuilding. In this volume, findings are presented from a six-year collaborative research project that, involving scholars from Indonesia, Nigeria, and Switzerland, investigated peacebuilding initiatives in Indonesia and Nigeria. The authors identify a number of logics that highlight how gender is deployed strategically or asserts itself inadvertently through gender stereotypes, gendered divisions of labour, or identity constructions. Contributors include: Mimidoo Achakpa, Ceren Bulduk, Rahel Kunz, Henri Myrttinen, Joy Onyesoh, Elisabeth Prügl, Arifah Rahmawati, Christelle Rigual and Wening Udasmoro"--

This book clarifies some key ideas and practices underlying peacebuilding; understood broadly as formal and informal peace processes that occur during pre-conflict, conflict and post-conflict transformation. Applicable to all peacebuilders, Elisabeth Porter highlights positive examples of women’s peacebuilding in comparative international contexts. She critically interrogates accepted and entrenched dualisms that prevent meaningful reconciliation, while also examining the harm of othering and the importance of recognition, inclusion and tolerance. Drawing on feminist ethics, the book develops a politics of compassion that defends justice, equality and rights and the need to restore victims’ dignity. Complex issues of memory, truth, silence and redress are explored while new ideas on reconciliation and embracing difference emerge. Many ideas challenge orthodox understandings of peace. The arguments developed here demonstrate how peacebuilding can be understood more broadly than current United Nations and orthodox usages so that women’s activities in conflict and transitional societies can be valued as participating in building sustainable peace with justice. Theoretically integrating peace and conflict studies, international relations, political theory and feminist ethics, this book focuses on the lessons to be learned from best practices of peacebuilding situated around the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security. Peacebuilding will be of particular interest to peace practitioners and to students and researchers of peace and conflict studies, international relations and gender politics.

A key book for conflict and peace studies, reveals the gendered nature of peacebuilding, its consequences, and the importance of women playing a part in peace processes in Africa.

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.

What is being done in conflict-affected countries to advance women's participation in peace processes and decision-making? In Peace and Security: Implications for women the authors combine a broad overview with specific local knowledge to examine the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, 'Women, Peace and Security'. They present case studies from Timor-Leste, Fiji and Sri Lanka to suggest the necessary steps to protect women and girls from violence, to ensure the perspectives of women in peacekeeping are not overlooked, and to increase the participation of women in decision-making. While identifying obstacles, the emphasis is on articulating best practices in numerous contexts and outlining key actions to be taken by development agencies, women's NGOs and policy-makers. In recognising the role of women, the authors, argue the cause of peace will be better served. Through the lens of women suffering from war imposed upon them from above, and women contributing to peace processes by working collaboratively from below, Peace and Security provides practical and transferable learning opportunities for advancing women's security and women's participation in leadership roles. Book jacket.