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- Hedström, Jenny, 1979-
(author)
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On violence, the everyday, and social reproduction : Agnes and Myanmar’s transition
- 2021
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In: Peacebuilding. - : Informa UK Limited. - 2164-7259 .- 2164-7267. ; 9:4, s. 371-386
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This article brings into conversation feminist political economy with critical studies in peace and conflict to examine how Myanmar’s transition is experienced though everyday gendered sites and with what consequences for women living in rural areas of the country, where lives are shaped as much by the actuality as the possibility of violence. The everyday is where these insecurities are felt, feared and negotiated. To illustrate this, I draw on the experiences of Agnes, a woman growing up within the context of prolonged conflict in rural Myanmar. I demonstrate how Agnes’s home, and her bodily labour and vulnerability, is at the locus of a gendered political economy (re)produced both within the home and at the national level. I show how the transition has for women like Agnes resulted in a continuation of insecurity, challenging the legitimacy of Myanmar’s neoliberal reform initiatives as a meaningful pathway towards sustainable peace and security.
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- Hedström, Jenny, 1979-, et al.
(author)
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Friendship and Intimacy in Research on Conflict : Implications for Feminist Ethics
- 2020
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- What does it mean to do research imbued with a feminist commitment to justice in contexts of long-lasting conflicts? Drawing on the authors’ experience of researching everyday peace in conflict-affected parts of Myanmar, this paper explores issues around trust, obligation, and ethics arising from the relationship between researcher, research brokers, and research participants. Taking the form of a conversation between the principal researcher (an academic from and based in the Global North) and the research-broker (an activist from and based in the Global South), we together reflect on what obligations a commitment to feminist struggles impose on research and how, and in what ways, previous relationships affect research ethics and the production of knowledge. We suggest that intimacy and trust can generate new knowledge about gender and war and aid a feminist research practice attentive to positionality, power, and ethics, particularly in communities with lasting experiences of war-time trauma and insecurity.
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| 3. |
- Olivius, Elisabeth, 1983-, et al.
(author)
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Young women's leadership in conflict: Crossing borders in Myanmar
- 2020
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In: Young women and leadership. - Abingdon & New York : Routledge. - 9780429261480 - 9780367204358 ; , s. 45-63
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Book chapter (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Multiple armed conflicts in Myanmar have resulted in long-term, large-scale forced displacement, humanitarian crises, and immense human suffering. However, the borderlands of Myanmar’s neighboring countries have also provided political space for the mobilization of diverse forms of oppositional politics, ranging from armed resistance to human rights documentation, alternative news reporting on the situation in Myanmar, and international networking and lobbying. In particular, since the 1990s these borderlands, most notably the Thai-Myanmar border areas, have seen the emergence of a vibrant and outspoken multi-ethnic women’s movement.In this chapter, we explore how young women activists from Myanmar have been able to carve out new spaces and forms of leadership while in exile in Thailand. From its inception, the border-based women’s movement made leadership training - specifically targeting young women - a key feature. We examine the impact of these training programs in the lives of women activists, and trace how graduates of these programs have moved on to lead in ways that have created social and political change within exiled oppositional politics and diaspora communities in Thailand. We analyze how the recent return of exiled activists and oppositional groups to Myanmar reshapes the conditions for young women’s leadership, presenting formerly exiled activists with new challenges as well as new avenues for leadership.Our analysis illustrates the political potential of border-crossing in several senses. In a spatial sense, we demonstrate how the diasporic, transnational political space in Thailand enabled young women to challenge age and gender norms and hierarchies to a degree previously unimagined, making young women leaders a significant force in Burmese diasporic politics. We note the importance of international advocacy and transnational networking to the growing recognition of young women as effective leaders, understanding this as another form of border-crossing. However, with return to Myanmar the political space for young women’s leadership is (again) reconfigured; accordingly, the effectiveness of leadership strategies and styles established in exile are reconsidered. In a conceptual sense, our analysis illuminates how young women activists have moved across boundaries between public and private leadership and formal and informal leadership. We highlight how the strategic deployment of women’s reproductive duties in the private sphere have created opportunities for women’s participation in the public sphere, for example in refugee camps and ethnic minority armed organizations. In the nationwide ceasefire process, women have combined informal advocacy through “tea break advocacy” (Pepper, 2018) with formal positions as leaders of women’s groups. We argue that in skillfully moving across these conceptual boundaries, young women activists’ affect social and political change. Situating border-crossing as a key feature of young women’s leadership in this context, we thus contribute to theorizing the character and impact of young women’s leadership.
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| 8. |
- Hedström, Jenny, 1979-
(author)
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Confusion, Seduction, Failure : Emotions as Reflexive Knowledge in Conflict Settings
- 2019
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In: International Studies Review. - : Oxford University Press. - 1521-9488 .- 1468-2486. ; 21:4, s. 662-677
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This article highlights the influence of emotions, affective experiences, and rumors on the construction of knowledge within research on conflict and in international politics, as well as within the research process itself. Drawing from fieldwork undertaken in a conflict zone in Myanmar, it suggests that academic knowledge production practices are informed both by the (violent) context in which research is undertaken and by the demands of the discipline to produce a scientifically accepted piece of research. It proposes that attention to emotions may facilitate strong objectivity (Harding 1992) by foregrounding the relationship between research participants, researchers, and the broader research (institutional and immediate) contexts. It introduces the term “rumors-as-affect” as a means to discuss how affective atmospheres or events in the research environments inform research. Three interview situations are presented, in which different emotional reactions are highlighted, focusing on “confusion and guilt”; “seduction”; and finally, “failure and ignorance.” These events illustrate how, in recognizing the role emotions and affective atmospheres play in research on conflict and in international politics (cf. Crawford 2014; Hutchison and Bleiker 2014; Ross 2013), researchers may begin to do justice to our representations of what is encountered in the field and how knowledge is constructed within the discipline.
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- Hedström, Jenny, 1979-
(author)
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Fear and fieldwork in Myanmar
- 2017
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In: International feminist journal of politics. - : Routledge. - 1461-6742 .- 1468-4470. ; 19:3, s. 386-387
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)
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