Even more sources!

Neil DeVotta, Blowback: Linguistic nationalism, institutional decay, and ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004

Devotta makes an interesting argurment citing linguitistic tensions as THE single most important f actor fuelling the conflict. He goes back to the Sinhala Only Bill which many other scholars see as a watershed and argues that this is the definitive step that led Sinhala nationalism to such an extreme. He also speaks and Tamil linguistic nationalism being very important, which would explain why Tamils beings pushed out of the system via languages in 1956 led to such tumultous relations.

Dutta, Nandana. “The Face of the Other: Terror and the Return of Binarism.” Interventions 6, 3 (2004): 431-450.

I discussed her briefly earlier on but I wanted to elucidate her argument here because I am using her for my final paper.

Her work essentially answers the question: Why is the other constructed and what justification is being used for political violence?

Perpetrators of political violence use justifications based on narratives and it is within these narratives we find the “other”. She points to the creation of “grand narratives”; these narratives help simplify the complex world but unfortunately create binaries, that is to say every narrative has a sense that there is a group of protagonists and antagonists.

I feel it is important to note that these narratives are not always wild tales for deluded folk. There have to be some truths in the narrative in order to get to the point of political violence because most political violence is perpetrated with the expectation of some support from the ‘self’, the group being fought for.

Bankoff, George. “Regions of Risk: Western Discourses on Terrorism and the Significance of Islam.” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 26 (2003): 413-428.

This is obviously related to the Chechen conflict and how when something is framed as an "Islamic problem" it also gets tagged with the notion it is irrational and unjustified.

George Bankoff’s assertion that the West has created “regions of risk” throughout the last few hundred years, and the current risk or terror comes from the Islamic world[1] . Bankoff acknowledges the flaw in the Western creation of knowledge but does not prescribe a fix for that flaw.


Matthe Evangelista "Just and Unjust Words."Foreign affairs. 82,3 (2003):171 -172.

The causes of violence relate to lack of adequate provision of public goods and this mistreatment seems to stem from the fact that the Chechen population are seen as distinct from the majority. Matthew Evangelista points out that Chechnya is the poorest of Russia’s 89 regions and the intense violence inflicted by the state during the two wars in the past decade has greatly exacerbated the situation. Evangelista has described Grozny as been “pounded to rubble” obviously decimating any opportunities for economic prosperity while demoralizing the population. Hundreds of thousands have fled the area and the Russians have forced many to return to a hopeless situation. The populations themselves have not taken a unified stance on whether or not they want national self-determination. In the Chechen case there is much more momentum however even those who perpetrate violence are not from a single ideological camp.

Some more sources

An interesting article on gender and conflict I read was by Mary Caprioli "Gender, Violence, and International Crisis" Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 45, No. 4, 503-518 (2001).

She discusses notions of masculinity and femininity on the international level and does a study to conclude that the more gender equality there is in a nation the less severe violence in a conflict will be. The indicators she uses for gender equality, such as fertility rates, have a very strong correlation with developing countries, so although her resulkts are interesting I am not entirely convinced, although it does seem as though developed countries tend to have higher levels of gender equality they also have a lower incidence of armed conflict.

She quotes Sharpiro Page in her article which I found to be a little humourous: ‘In practically all realms of foreign and domestic policy, women are less belligerent than men.’

Another article I have read on Chechen grievances and how legitimate the claim to independence was is my Michael Bowter entitled "Russia and Chechnya: The issue of secession. Nations and Nationalism 10 (4), 2004, 461–478.

Bowter argues that liberals tend to be muddled about a stance on independence struggles, having compassion for the minorities but also fearing the consequences of the war that may ensure.

A few books

Here a few books I have used in my paper that I have not yet posted about:

Cynthia Enloe The Curious Feminist: Searching for women in a new age of empire

Particularly useful in this book were the following chapters:

1. The Surprised Feminist
2. Margins, silences, and Bottom Rungs: How to Overcome the Underestimation of Power in the Study of International Relations
7. All the men are in the Militias, All the women are victims: The politics of masculinity and feminity in Nationalist Wars
8. Spoils of War
16. Demilitarization- or more of the same? Feminist questions to ask in the postwar moment

What is interesting is that Enloe recognizes particular criticism of her work in IR from the get-go and addresses them throughout her book; for instance in the first chapter she assures that feminist work is not meant to "valorize" women but to focus on the experiences that are so often ignored. Feminism i) aims to take women's experiences seriously ii) has a hunch that political power is gendered. Some of this experiences she discusses in depth in following chapters when discussing womens roles in wars as soldiers, labourers in an industry supporting the war, spouses of soldiers and diplomats etc. Enloe acknowledges gender construction in obvious ways but does not EXPLICITLY seperate gender and sex the way most authors do. So although the link is obvious, I still think the reader could benefit from Enloe including a brief discussion on this.

Social construction has four components for Enloe: imagining, policy making, persuasion, and response.

Military culture for Enloe is "masculinized", in Chapter 7 for instnace the cleame she makes is that the militarization of ethnic nationalism is dependent on persauding the individual man that their manhood will be validated only if they serve as soldiers. She makes a convincing argument, however I think that simplifies the grievances present in ethnic conflict that drives particular groups to armed conflict as a result of non-response from the other party.

Steffan Wolf Managing and Settling Ethnic Conflicts

I used this book to define ethnic conflict for myself in a concrete way and to glean insight on commonalities between ethnic conflicts.

Wolff defines conflict as: two or more actors pursuing incompatible goals, are aware of this incompatibility and have justified cause for the pursuit of their goals

Ethnic conflict is perceived or existing discrimination along ethnic lines. I think that in both the Sri Lankan case and the Chechen case that the discriminated is in fact real, but I also think that when real discrimination is present it heightens the perceived discrimination as one already has evidence that they are being discriminated against so its easier to make the connection on other levels where it may not exist. Discrimination is also very context specific-for instance in the Chechen case discrimination is not only on an ethnic basis but increasingly on a religous basis as the image of Islam as a violent religino spawning all sorts of terror across the globe has been a dominant narrative since the Iranian revolution in recent times, but its root go further than that (for more on this see Uncovering Islam by Edward Said).

Another useful aspect of Wolff’s work is how he distinguishes ethnic minorities:
As i) external – from another state
ii) transnational – the Tamils of Sri Lanka fall under this category
iii) indigenous – the Chechen are indigenous to their own territory but there has been diaspora into Russia at large

Ananda Abeysekara Colors of the Robe: Religion, Identity and Difference

This is a really engaging book on Buddhism in Sri Lanka, although there was only one chapter of direct use to me, Chapter 7: Violence and Religion, Terror(ism) and identity.

It basically outlines from the early 1980s on how the Buddhist identity was aligned with the Sinhala “race” and how it has effected the conflict. A particularly interesting phenomenon is how the “fearless monk” rose from these circumstances in the 80s as some monks redefined their role in society to” march forward fearlessly” to “protect the race that had fed them for 2000 years”. Other monks disagreed with this conceptualization of their role and as a result there were clashes, sometimes even violent ones, between the monks. Having religious authority support the Sinhala nationalist cause boosted its legitimacy as they held Jayawardene’s rule as the cause of the terrorist “river of blood” created as he did not protect the Sinhala race in their eyes.

Religion plays a very interesting roles in both conflicts in a few ways: how religious values actually influence various actors, how they define gender roles within society and within conflict, and how religion is perceived to affect conflict via its influence on the consciousness of various actors (as in the case of Chechnya in particular).

Types of feminism

During my presentation Prof Chan wanted me to talk more specifically about different types of feminism so I am making an effort to explicitly include this is the final paper.

An awesome resource I found for this was J. Ann Ticker's article in International Studies Quarterly from Dec 1997, entitled " You just don't understand: Troubled engagements between feminists and IR theorists". She goes through the types of feminism that IR draws upon in a concise manner that has allowed me to sort of truncate in a way the different kinds of feminisms for my paper section on an overview of feminism.

There are also a bunch of articles that I have reviewed recently that I need to post about, which hopefully I will get to later tonite.

A few more articles...

"Gender and War, Gender and Peace: New Perspectives" by Angela Woollacott

Australian Feminist Studies 389-391

This article reviewed a number of feminist wriers' approaches to gendered conflict and peace. She aptly points out that most of the work being done in this area is directed towards first world nations like the US, Canada, UK etc.
She mentions a piece called "Where are the Girls?" that was commissioned by the Canadian International DevelopmentAgency. This report " seeks to draw the attention of the United Nations and other policy makers to the plight of girls in armed conflict and post-war reconstruction, especially in Africa." Although it isn't the regions I am looking at in particular it still seems worthwhile to take a look at. I can't seem to find it online or through the library since it is a report not a book, but I Mazurana's book Women and Peacebuilding from Robarts as well as a few more of Enloe's pieces that I can't get at the UTSC library.

Another startling fact she touches upon is that girls (under 18) have fought in 55 different countries between 1990-2003 (390). The effects have been especially devestating in countries like Sierra Leone where rape of these girls is rampant and after that they are expected to take care of the children borne of these atrocities.

Another interesting article is "The Black Widows: Chechen Women Join
the Fight for Independence—and Allah" by Anne Nivate, a Russian independent reporter. Since it is written by a journalist rather than an academic, it gives me a better idea as to situations in conflict zones on the micro level. Theoritical work that I have read thus far has provided me with interesting ways to organize and make sense of the concepts of gendered conflict and gendered peace, but in a way I have to keep reminded myself to be able to apply theortically notions in some sort of empirical manner.

in the thick of it

There is so much great material on my topic out there, such as this article I just finished reading (thank goodness I stumbled upon it!)


"BETWEEN REALITY AND REPRESENTATION
Women’s Agency in War and Post-Conflict Sri Lanka" by DARINI RAJASINGHAM-SENANAYAKE in Cultural Dynamics

What is particularly interesting about the articles is the author's rejection of traditonal theories of liberalisation whereby it is assumed there is a linear path of development towards the greater and more meaningful roles for women in any given soceity.

She also points out that women political leaders ( a sort of goal of empowerment) do not necessarily improve women's lives in a significant way, although they may minimize the impact of extreme misogynist cultural norms. Women leaders in prominenet positions are rarely 'born great' but are sort of the legacies of men (wives/daughters), for example in Sri Lanka this is the case with Sirimavo and Chandrika Bandaranaike. "In short, even powerful South Asian women rarely appear to be agents of their destinies—in war or in peacetime." [143]

She also raises the point that although the PM Chandrika Bandaranaike made an effort to distance herself from stout Sinhala nationalism, political survival meant she had to become embroiled in the conflict as well. This has opened up a new way of seeing for me with regards to institutional arrangements, that is to say they have a sizeable impact on how conflict resoultion is avoided, diluted or misled.

Can't forget this

I. Inter and intra group "othering":

Since both conflicts are based on identity, it is useful to examine them in terms of "othering". That is to say, scholars like Nandana Dutta amongst a myriad of others believe much conflict in a product of subject-object conceptions between different groups. Groups based on certain identities (ethnicity, religion etc) create binaries based on "us" and "them". Creating the "them" part of the equation, i.e. the "other", allows individuals to partcipate in discriminatory and violent activities are the other is dehumanized (i.e. the OTHER does not RESONATE with SELF, this distinct break allows distance and differentiation and thus justification for violence).

As interesting as these theories are, my research can definitely benefit from there by looking at inter-group othering and intra-group othering. Not only are clear distincations made between groups, they are also made within groups: i.e between men and women part of the same identity-based group. Thus actions within the group can be a product of an implicit power struggle, disproportionately benefitting certain members at the cost of others (though it does not have to be a zero-sum game as such). This just occurred to me and I am quite excited by this idea...we'll see how I feel about it in a week haha.

*I need to find some literature on this other than general theories of "othering" that I have already examined

II. Collective action:

Using Olson's collective action logic to explore the question: why do minority interests supersede majority interests? Clearly women comprise half of any given society (give a take a little!), so it does not make sense why formal and informal policies and actions are not embedded with consideration towards half of the human population more often than currently in place, keeping in mind that this would not necessarily take away from any sort of benefits to men. In the cases I am examining I should thus focus on who is steering peace and conflict and what they have to gain from it, and how others are losing as a result of it.

Awesome article

Evangelista M , "Is putin the new de Gaulle? A comparison of the Chechen and Algerian wars,"
POST-SOVIET AFFAIRS 21 (4): 360-377 OCT-DEC 2005

An awesome article I just read helped me in a number of a ways. Most importantly, it was a comparative article between Russian-Chechen situation and French-Algerian situation which gives me a better idea of what is an effective way to use two case studies. Secondly, is discussed the mainstream gendered view of those conflicts and countered those views by providing data on what kinds of activities women were involved in (black widows for example).