| 1. |
- Olivius, Elisabeth, 1983-
(författare)
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Governing Refugees through Gender Equality : Care, Control, Emancipation
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In recent decades, international feminist activism and research has had significant success in pushing gender issues onto the international agenda and into global governance institutions and processes. The goal of gender equality is now widely accepted and codified in international legal instruments. While this appears to be a remarkable global success for feminism, widespread gender inequalities persist around the globe. This paradox has led scholars to question the extent to which feminist concepts and goals can retain their transformative potential when they are institutionalized in global governance institutions and processes. This thesis examines the institutionalization of feminist ideas in global governance through an analysis of how, and with what effects, gender equality norms are constructed, interpreted and applied in the global governance of refugees: a field that has thus far received little attention in the growing literature on feminism, gender and global governance. This aim is pursued through a case study of humanitarian aid practices in refugee camps in Bangladesh and Thailand. The study is based on interviews with humanitarian workers in these two contexts, and its theoretical framework is informed by postcolonial feminist theory and Foucauldian thought on power and governing. These analytical perspectives allows the thesis to capture how gender equality norms operate as governing tools, and situate the politics of gender equality in refugee camps in the context of global relations of power and marginalization. The findings of this thesis show that in the global governance of refugees, gender equality is rarely treated as a goal in its own right. The construction, interpretation and application of gender equality norms is mediated and shaped by the dominant governing projects in this field. Gender equality norms are either advocated on the basis of their usefulness as means for the efficient management of refugee situations, or as necessary components of a process of modernization and development of the regions from which refugees originate. These governing projects significantly limit the forms of social change and the forms of agency that are enabled. Nevertheless, gender equality norms do contribute to opening up new opportunities for refugee women and destabilizing local gendered relations of power, and they are appropriated and used by refugees in ways that challenge and go beyond humanitarian agendas.
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| 2. |
- Blomqvist, Linnéa, et al.
(författare)
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Care and silence in women’s everyday peacebuilding in Myanmar
- 2021
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Ingår i: Conflict, Security and Development. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1467-8802 .- 1478-1174. ; 21:3, s. 223-244
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article draws on feminist perspectives on the everyday to explore women’s everyday experiences of peace in Kayah state in Myanmar. We locate the daily practices women engage in to maintain life and minimise violence, making visible women’s contributions to everyday peace. In addition, we examine the ways in which women are disproportionally affected by war and prevented from benefitting from post-war changes. Our findings demonstrate that practices of care and silence are key avenues for women’s everyday peacebuilding, through which women sustain peace, ensure survival, and minimise violence in their families and wider communities. At the same time, however, these practices are conditioned by and may contribute to gendered insecurity and marginalisation for women. Through this focus, our analysis shows how women’s positioning in gendered relations of power may both enable their agency in peacebuilding and reinforce their gendered inequality and marginalisation in the post-war period. We conclude that while everyday peace practices may hold the potential for positive change, these can also contribute to the reproduction of inequality, oppression and structural violence.
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| 3. |
- Boulanger Martel, Simon Pierre, et al.
(författare)
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Peace with Adjectives : Conceptual Fragmentation or Conceptual Innovation?
- 2024
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Ingår i: International Studies Review. - : Oxford University Press. - 1521-9488 .- 1468-2486. ; 26:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- What strategies can be employed to conceptualize peace? In recent years, scholars have introduced an impressive array of “peace with adjectives” in order to make sense of some of the normative and empirical underpinnings of peace. Negative, positive, everyday, virtual, illiberal, partial, insecure, relational, emancipatory, agonistic, and feminist are some of the qualifiers that have been associated with the concept. While the growing attention to conceptualization is a welcomed development, we argue that the proliferation of new terms has led to increased fragmentation in the field of peace studies. Conceptual fragmentation impedes cumulative knowledge production and generates missed opportunities for fruitful discussions across theoretical and conceptual divides. In this article, we aim to provide more clarity to our field by mapping existing peace conceptualizations and identifying the strategies employed by scholars to construct innovative new terms. In our review, we identify 61 concepts and suggest that these conceptual innovations in peace research belong to one of three analytical strategies: developing diminished subtypes, conceptual narrowing, and conceptual expansion. Building on this categorization, we make recommendations for how peace researchers can enhance clarity and deepen constructive discussions between different conceptual approaches.
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| 4. |
- Cardenas, Magda Lorena, et al.
(författare)
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Building Peace in the Shadow of War : Women-to-Women Diplomacy as Alternative Peacebuilding Practice in Myanmar
- 2021
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Ingår i: Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding. - : Routledge. - 1750-2977 .- 1750-2985. ; 15:3, s. 347-366
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Conventional assumptions locating peacebuilding temporally after violence have largely prevented exploration of how peacebuilding is practiced amidst conditions of ongoing violence. This article addresses this gap by analysing how Myanmar women's activists have devised strategies in pursuit of peace, amidst ongoing armed conflict, from the 1990s and onwards. The findings demonstrate that women's inter-ethnic cooperation contributed to transform conflict divides long before the initiation of formal national peace negotiations in 2011. Further, theorizing these peacebuilding practices, the article provides new insights into the dynamics of women's peace activism of relevance beyond the case of Myanmar.
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| 5. |
- Cardenas, Magda, 1982-
(författare)
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Women-to-women diplomacy : the pursuit of feminist peace in Georgia and Myanmar
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Why and how do women engage in peacebuilding efforts across conflict divides? This dissertation coins a novel concept, women-to-women diplomacy – or W2WD – to explore women’s peace activism in Georgia and Myanmar. W2WD consists of three components: 1) the promotion of women’s agency as a key aspect of mobilisation and peacebuilding practices; 2) women’s own experiences of conflict as a basis for bridging divides; and 3) women’s visions of gender equality as a fundamental part of peace. This concept emerged from my empirical observations of women’s organisations and activists from Georgia and Myanmar as charted through interviews and participant observation. It also builds on previous research on bottom-up peacebuilding and literature on women and peace. Until now there has been limited knowledge about the practices, motivations and visions of peace underpinning women’s peacebuilding efforts. This dissertation addresses this gap by exploring women’s peace activism at different stages of inter-ethnic civil conflict based on case studies from two conflict contexts, Georgia and Myanmar, covering situations of active fighting, ongoing peace negotiations, and frozen conflicts. The dissertation shows that W2WD is an alternative peacebuilding approach which creates platforms for dialogue and cooperation by facilitating personal encounters between women who share both experiences of conflict as well as a common goal of achieving equal rights. By developing the concept of W2WD, this dissertation theorizes and makes visible recurring patterns in women’s peacebuilding practices across conflict settings and contributes a new analytical framework that can be used in further research. The findings of this dissertation are also important for practitioners who wish to broaden their understanding of women’s organisations as key partners in the formulation of alternative peacebuilding strategies.
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| 6. |
- Cardeño, Coline Esther, et al.
(författare)
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'Jihad is Planted in Our Hearts' : International Aid, Rebel Institutions and Women's Participation in the Bangsamoro
- 2023
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Ingår i: Civil Wars. - : Routledge. - 1369-8249 .- 1743-968X.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article explores the encounter between the Women, Peace and Security agenda and rebel institutions in Mindanao. The analysis highlights that activities aiming to support women’s participation in peacebuilding often exist in parallel with and fail to fully recognise women’s existing forms of mobilisation within Non-State Armed Groups. This gap is bridged by civil society brokers who are associated with armed groups but speak the language of international peacebuilding frameworks. The findings point to the important role of such intermediaries in translating international norms, and to rebel groups and institutions as arenas for women’s political mobilisation and empowerment.
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| 7. |
- Hedström, Jenny, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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Insecurity, Dispossession, Depletion : Women’s Experiences of Post‐War Development in Myanmar
- 2020
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Ingår i: European Journal of Development Research. - : Palgrave Macmillan. - 0957-8811 .- 1743-9728. ; 32:2, s. 379-403
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article explores the gendered dynamics of Myanmar’s post-war economic reforms through an analysis of women’s experiences of development in Kayah (Karenni) state. In Myanmar, ceasefires and a reduction of armed violence combined with state-driven economic liberalization reforms are conditioned by, but also contribute to remake, gendered relations of power, privilege and marginalization. While new land legislation and development projects have contributed to loss of land and livelihoods among rural populations in general, our study demonstrates that women living in conflict-affected border areas are disproportionally affected. Drawing on interviews and participant observation, we show how this is directly related to an overarching gendered politi- cal economy defined by legacies of conflict, discrimination and uneven processes of development, which positions women as particularly vulnerable to new forms of inse- curity, dispossession and depletion generated by post-war economic transformations. We argue that the political and economic legacies of war in the state has produced a gendered division of labor that positions women as responsible for unpaid and under- paid informal and social reproductive labor, weakens women’s access to land, and results in physical, material, and emotional depletion. Through this focus, our study adds to research on development and economic restructuring in post-war contexts in general, and to emergent scholarship on Myanmar’s economic reforms in particular.
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| 9. |
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| 10. |
- Hedström, Jenny, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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The politics of sexual violence in the Kachin conflict in Myanmar
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Conflict-related sexual violence has been the focus of significant international activism and policy attention. International legal norms and frameworks have evolved to recognize it as a war crime, and a representation of sexual violence as a “weapon of war” is now widely endorsed. This paper examines how international norms about conflict-related sexual violence are adopted and utilized in multiple ways in the armed conflict in Kachin state in Northern Myanmar. Throughout decades of civil war, international norms on sexual violence have constituted key resources for international advocacy and awareness raising by local women activists. Further, women activists have drawn on international norms to effect changes in gendered relations of power within their own communities. However, international norms on sexual violence in conflict have also been effectively used as tools for ethno-nationalist identity politics, rallying support behind the armed insurgency and mobilizing women’s unpaid labour in the service of war. Thus, international norms on conflict-related sexual violence has simultaneously opened up space for women’s empowerment and political agency, andreproduced gendered forms of insecurity and marginalization. Exploring these contradictions and complexities, the analysis sheds light on the multiple political uses and effects of international norms in armed conflict.
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