Dr Maria O'Reilly

This chapter highlights the vital contributions and key challenges posed by feminist scholarship in Peace & Conflict Studies (PCS). It provides an overview of feminist PCS research and examines the crucial insights that are gained by bringing women, gender, and feminism to the forefront of analyses of contemporary conflict and post-war peacebuilding processes. Feminist voices remain marginalised from contemporary debates on statebuilding. Yet, feminist contributions are essential for understanding why dominant models of post-conflict reconstruction often (re)embed (rather than effectively contest) gendered forms of violence, injustice, and inequality in conflict-affected contexts. This chapter aims to bridge this gap by providing an introduction to feminist theory, and by outlining the significance of gender as a power-laden social construction that must be unpacked to understand the key drivers of conflict and post-war recovery processes.

International intervention in conflicted and post-conflict societies in the post-Cold War era has been characterised by a growing international consensus regarding the aims and methods of managing, resolving and/or transforming contemporary conflict (Richmond 2004). Leading states, international organisations, international financial institutions and other key peacebuilding actors focus on (re)building a ‘liberal peace’ through the reconstruction of liberal polities, economies and societies (Bellamy and Williams 2004: 4–5; Paris 1997; 2004). This growing consensus on achieving peace through liberalisation has triggered major changes in the conduct of peace operations, and critical reflections in peace and conflict studies on the nature and quality of peace being (re)built in the aftermath of war. In parallel, a slow but positive shift can be detected in policymaking rhetoric regarding the gender-specific consequences of armed conflict and violence, coupled with a gradual acknowledgement of the importance of integrating a gender-perspective in the development and implementation of peacebuilding interventions. The need to undertake ‘gender mainstreaming’ has been articulated in international policy pronouncements and programme guidelines produced by major peacebuilding actors, most notably the UN whose adoption of Security Council Resolution 1325 called for the broad participation of women in peacebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction, acknowledged that conflict is a gendered experience, argued that sustainable peace entails the full and equal participation of women in decision-making, and affirmed a belief that women can play an important role in peace processes. Despite these developments, women often remain marginalised from official peace processes, the issue of gender equality is rarely prioritised in the design and implementation of peace agreements and post-conflict reconstruction programmes, and war crimes of gender violence are generally not adequately addressed in transitional justice processes. This situation points to the need to explore the ways in which (re)building peace may (re)construct gendered forms of domination, injustice and insecurity in transitional societies, rather than empowering women (and marginalised men) to achieve political, economic and social transformation in the aftermath of war.

This article highlights the centrality of gender to the liberal peacebuilding agenda in Bosnia-Herzegovina. It examines the discourses and practices of liberal interventionism, focusing on the Office of the High Representative (OHR) as a crucial site for the constitution of gendered subjects and agents in this post-conflict zone. Drawing on poststructural theories and representations of Balkan identity, it explores the gendered articulations of Paddy Ashdown, first during his wartime visits to Bosnia-Herzegovina, and second, during his tenure as High Representative. A discourse-theoretical analysis highlights how Ashdown rationalized his involvement in wartime Bosnia-Herzegovina through a powerful self-identification with an ‘interventionist model of masculinity’ which equates manliness with a responsibility to protect a vulnerable/backward/feminized Balkan ‘other’ from violence and harm. Moreover, gendered discourses helped to conceptualize and legitimate the peace implementation role of the OHR, allowing the organization to position coercive strategies and policies as appropriate and necessary for creating sustainable peace. Overall, this article highlights how gender is mobilized to promote and impose liberal policies and norms, with significant implications for the quality of peace being (re)constructed.

This article advances a feminist theorization of the critical nexus between family and armed conflict. It does so by examining the relationship between familial ties and women’s participation in fighting forces. We focus on two key questions: What are the familial ties that are constituted through conditions of war? And how do these ties shape women’s participation in armed groups, in various forms? Critical IR and feminist scholarship recognize that family sustains war symbolically and materially. Yet, what is missing is a theoretical conceptualization of the relationship between the diverse ties that constitute family in contexts of war and women’s participation in armed groups. Our novel framework – of militarized familial ties - conceptualizes familial ties as affective bonds that both emerge through and are transformed by war’s violence. This dynamic framing allows us, first, to systematically illustrate how familial ties shape key processes pursued by armed groups, including the recruitment and retention of fighters. And second, our framing offers crucial new insights into how the political subjectivities of women fighters intersect with familial ties. We offer a new typology of militarized familial ties to illustrate how pre-existing and emergent familial ties both condition, and are conditioned by, women’s participation in armed groups. We demonstrate the wider implications of our theoretical intervention by reflecting on long-term field research conducted in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and Nepal.

This chapter examines the gender dynamics of war-fighting and peacebuilding, by providing an overview of feminist perspectives on war and peace. It begins by outlining feminist approaches to international relations (IR) and introduces gender as a key empirical category and theoretical tool for understanding key issues in global politics. The chapter then highlights the ways in which gender discourses and practices play a crucial role in the legitimisation, conceptualisation and production of contemporary warfare. The chapter then explores feminist scholarship on post-war peacebuilding, highlighting that although the aftermath of war often provides an opening for gender relations to be transformed, in many cases gendered hierarchies of power are (re)constructed and maintained in the transition from war to peace. In the final section, the chapter examines how feminists have responded to these dilemmas, before outlining a framework for promoting gender justice and transformative change in peacebuilding contexts.

Gender justice in peacebuilding contexts can be defined as efforts to recognise, and provide redress for, the gendered harms of war. In post-war contexts, transitional justice mechanisms are often used to address complex legacies of mass violence and widespread human rights abuses. In recent decades, feminist researchers and activists have highlighted the importance of integrating gender justice into peace and justice initiatives. This entry focuses on two key approaches to achieving gender justice in peacebuilding settings. The first, legal justice, is a top-down, formal approach to gender justice. It involves states and/or international organisations establishing courts and tribunals where perpetrators are held accountable under international criminal law. The second, women’s courts and tribunals, represents a bottom-up, informal approach to gender justice. It involves grassroots actors creating informal truth-telling mechanisms, which may better respond to the needs of survivors and the communities in which they live.

Post-conflict interventions to ‘deal with’ violent pasts have moved from exception to global norm. Early efforts to achieve peace and justice were critiqued as ‘gender-blind’—for failing to address sexual and gender-based violence, and neglecting the gender-specific interests and needs of women in transitional settings. The advent of UN Security Council resolutions on ‘Women, Peace and Security’ provided a key policy framework for integrating both women and gender issues into transitional justice processes and mechanisms. Despite this, gender justice and equality in (post-)conflict settings remain largely unachieved. This article explores efforts to attain gender-just peace in post-conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). It critically examines the significance of a recent ‘bottom-up’ truth-telling project—the Women’s Court for the former Yugoslavia—as a locally engaged approach to achieving justice and redress for women impacted by armed conflict. Drawing on participant observation, documentary analysis, and interviews with women activists, the article evaluates the successes and shortcomings of responding to gendered forms of wartime violence through truth-telling. Extending Nancy Fraser’s tripartite model of justice to peacebuilding contexts, the article advances notions of recognition, redistribution and representation as crucial components of gender-just peace. It argues that recognizing women as victims and survivors of conflict, achieving a gender-equitable distribution of material and symbolic resources, and enabling women to participate as agents of transitional justice processes are all essential for transforming the structural inequalities that enable gender violence and discrimination to materialize before, during, and after conflict.

The International Studies Encyclopedia and its online version, International Studies Online, published in association with the International Studies Association (ISA), is the most comprehensive reference work of its kind for the fields of international studies and international relations. The print version is arranged across 12 volumes in an A–Z format and brings together specially commissioned, peer reviewed essays, written and edited by an international team of the world′s best scholars and teachers. Key features: Over 400 peer reviewed essays of up to 10,000 words focusing on the most important topics and issues Aimed at students, scholars, and practitioners, the essays are designed to allow readers to be brought quickly up–to–date on the nature of the questions asked, past attempts at formulating responses, and the current state of debates Comprehensive coverage of the field Extensive index volume International Studies Online is updated annually and enhanced by live links to archives, datasets, cases, pedagogical aids, and other relevant materials The project is organized primarily around the sections representing areas of specialization within the ISA. Each specialized section has organized a committee to identify key topics and identify authors.

This essay by Gorana Mlinarević and Nela Porobić provides a detailed critique of private and individualised approaches to remembrance in Bosnia & Herzegovina. The authors offer an eye-opening account of the perils associated with the neoliberal model of international peacebuilding, which has failed to adequately address legacies of war in BiH. They highlight the consequences of the failure to provide a common framework for raising memorials and paying tribute to victims and survivors of wartime violence. A common framework is sorely needed, since it would help communities across BiH to acknowledge and remember those who suffered in war, using practices such as memorialisation and commemoration.

Feminist scholars and practitioners have challenged—and sought to overcome—gendered forms of inequality, subordination, or oppression within a variety of political, economic, and social contexts. However, feminists have been embroiled in profound theoretical disagreements over a variety of issues, including the nature and significance of the relationship between culture and the production of gendered social life, as well as the implications of cultural location for women’s agency, feminist knowledge production, and the possibilities of building cross-cultural feminist coalitions and agendas. Many of the approaches that emerged in the “first” and “second waves” of feminist scholarship and activism were not able to effectively engage with questions of culture. Women of color and ethnicity, postcolonial feminists and poststructural feminists, in addition to the questions and debates raised by liberal feminists (and their critics) on the implications of multiculturalism for feminist goals, have produced scholarship that highlights issues of cultural difference, division, diversity, and differentiation. Their critiques of the “universalism” and “culture-blindness” of second wave theories and practices exposed the hegemonic and exclusionary tendencies of the feminist movement in the global North, and opened up the opportunity to develop intersectional analyses and feminist identity politics, thereby shifting issues of cultural diversity and difference from the margins to the center of international feminism. The debates on cultural difference, division, diversity, and differentiation have enriched feminist scholarship within the discipline of international relations, particularly after 9/11.

Critical Peace and Conflict Studies (PCS) as a field cares about gender. Yet, feminist work frequently receives token acknowledgement by critical scholars rather than sustained engagement and analysis. This Special Issue demonstrates why critical PCS needs feminist epistemologies, methodologies, and empirical analyses. In this introductory article, we deploy a feminist genealogical analysis of the ‘four generations’ of PCS and argue that the ghettoization of ‘gender issues’ marginalises feminist work within academia, policy, and practice. Critical PCS research has taken inspiration from feminist scholars, however there remain opportunities for deeper conversations. Addressing this marginalisation matters if we wish to decolonise PCS and develop a nuanced sensory perception of peace and conflict. Furthermore, engaging with feminist ideas can directly contribute to building more meaningful, sustainable, and equitable forms of peace. In short: feminist insights are crucial to prompting a deeper and more transformative dialogue within the scholarship and practice of critical PCS.

The testimonies of witnesses who testify before criminal courts provide crucial insights into the situated experience of conflict-related sexual violence. Witness testimonies highlight the complex realities and everyday lives of individuals caught up in situations of armed conflict. The evidence presented by witnesses can provide vital insights into lived experiences of wartime violence, and reveal the seemingly mundane strategies and tactics adopted by victims to cope with, survive and resist the violent and coercive circumstances of war. This article foregrounds conflict-related sexual violence witness testimonies as highly significant sources of knowledge of the everyday experiences of conflict. It sets out a bottom-up, mixed-method approach for identifying and analysing the experiential accounts of those who lived through conflict-related sexual violence, while engaging with the opportunities and challenges of using witness testimony. Our approach unsettles existing notions of ‘the everyday’ in Peace & Conflict Studies as a synonym for narratives and practices of violence, justice and peacebuilding that are private, informal and largely hidden from view. Understanding witness testimonies requires conceptualising the everyday as an amalgam of formal and informal practices, as accessible through both elite and lay knowledges and as documented in both public and private (e.g. redacted) sources. It requires challenging taken-for-granted dichotomies that are frequently invoked to understand conflict and peace.

This book provides a feminist intervention in Peace & Conflict Studies. It demonstrates why feminist approaches matter to theories and practices of resolving conflict and building peace. Understanding power inequalities in contexts of armed conflict and peace processes is crucial for identifying the root causes of conflict and opportunities for peaceful transformation. Feminist scholarship offers vital theoretical insights and innovative methods, which can deepen our understanding of power relations in peacebuilding. Yet, all too often feminist research receives token acknowledgement rather than sustained engagement and analysis. This collection highlights the value of feminist analysis to contemporary Peace and Conflict Studies. Drawing on cases studies from around the world - including Croatia, Myanmar, Iceland, Nepal, India, Afghanistan, and Timor-Leste – it demonstrates why paying serious attention to feminist scholarship prompts useful insights for peacebuilding policy, practice and scholarship. Feminist theory, epistemology, and methodology provide a rich resource for critically analysing peacebuilding practices. In particular, the chapters highlight the value of feminist reflexivity, the contributions of a feminist corporeal analysis, and the significance of a feminist reading of core concepts in Peace and Conflict Studies – including hybridity, the local and the everyday.

The final chapter draws out the key conclusions of this study, and highlights how women in Bosnia are working to expand the boundaries of post-conflict justice through forms of activism that centre on the question of “dealing with the past”. Transitional justice processes are foregrounded as crucial sites of gendered agency. These processes offer opportunities for women to challenge or alternatively reinforce gender hierarchies and norms by engaging in post-war struggles over justice. The chapter also presents several recommendations for advancing gender justice in (post-)conflict contexts. It highlights how processes of “dealing with the past” might be re-envisioned to provide forms of justice that address the interests, needs, desires, and expectations of women affected by armed conflict in Bosnia and other (post)conflict settings.

This book examines how gendered agency emerges in peacebuilding contexts.

This chapter situates the study within its historical context, providing a brief overview of conflict and peacebuilding in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and a short account of women’s activism in the former Yugoslavia. The chapter posits that the activism being undertaken by women working firstly within associations of missing and killed persons, secondly within associations comprising former camp detainees and survivors of wartime rape and torture, and thirdly within women’s/feminist advocacy groups, can be understood in terms of a nascent gender justice movement. Victims, survivors, and their representatives have mobilised to expose the gendered impact of transitional justice mechanisms. They foreground women’s experiences as victims and survivors and as subjects of justice, and spotlight the gendered forms of subordination and inequality being forged, shaped, and reproduced.

This chapter provides a discourse analysis of how Bosnia’s transition from war to peace is narrated in “official” discourses on transitional justice. First, the chapter focuses on wartime rape and sexual violence, and examines how war crimes trials are communicated as a helpful mechanism for dealing with this legacy. Official discourse largely works to reproduce rather than contest stereotypical notions of rape survivors as helpless and passive victims of war. Second, the chapter explores how the process of locating, recovering, and identifying missing persons is represented as a reliable and effective method for addressing wartime disappearances. Families of the missing are constituted as agential subjects, opening up potential for women to take up active roles in seeking truth, justice, and redress. Finally, Fraser’s framework is deployed to explore the gaps and inequalities of existing justice provision.

This chapter explores gendered agency in relation to wartime rape and sexual violence. It examines women’s responses to criminal justice processes, highlighting how survivors articulate their own positions on justice, to make it meaningful within the context of their own lives and experiences. Resisting their depiction as passive victims, some women have taken up active roles in criminal justice processes, despite the challenges and dangers involved. Others have weighed up the potential risks and rewards and decided not to testify in the absence of adequate witness protection and support. The chapter also examines the successes and failings of a recent feminist truth-telling initiative, the Women’s Court for the former Yugoslavia, in providing gender justice for war-affected women in Bosnia.

This chapter examines how gendered agency emerges in response to the issue of missing persons. It notes that despite the devastating impact of wartime disappearances, activists demonstrate remarkable courage and fortitude in searching for their loved ones, and in taking up new roles and identities post-conflict. I highlight different modes of agency which have emerged in relation to the issue of missing persons. These include: the active search for missing loved ones; cooperation with domestic and international institutions involved in locating, exhuming, and identifying missing persons; the construction of much-needed structures of support to help other families; expansion or rejection of official discourse on justice; engagement in identity politics to articulate justice claims; and the creation and maintenance of dialogue and cooperation across ethno-national and national divides.

What is the relationship between gender, agency, and peacebuilding? Do contemporary peacebuilding practices provide “gender justice”? How and why does gendered agency and resistance emerge in response to international peace and security interventions? This introductory chapter outlines the key themes, concepts, and methodological approach deployed in this book to interrogate the gender politics of peacebuilding. It argues that despite the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace & Security, international peacebuilding interventions fail to adequately address demands for gender justice in (post-)conflict settings, and continue to overlook women’s agency in relation to war and peace. The chapter introduces gendered agency and gender justice as crucial concepts for evaluating efforts to achieve gender-just peace, and for understanding local responses and resistances to international intervention.

This chapter introduces an innovative theoretical framework for understanding gender justice and gendered agency in war and peace. The first section unpacks the notion of gender justice. It extends Nancy Fraser’s tripartite model of justice to peacebuilding contexts, and advances notions of recognition, redistribution, and representation as crucial components of gender-just peace. The second section draws on relational understandings of autonomy within feminist moral philosophy, and incorporates a feminist poststructuralist framework, to understand how gendered agency emerges, is enabled and/or constrained in relation to peacebuilding interventions. In contrast to essentialist portrayals of women as passive victims of war or heroic peacebuilders, women are conceptualised as gendered agents who deploy different modes and degrees of agency.