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).

New orientation

After receiving Prof Chan's comments on my initial proposal, I made a few changes to the direction of my paper.

This will contain the overview of my new approach, and a detailed version should follow by Thursday.

The scope of my paper needs to be broadened in the sense that my theoritical framework needs to be broadened. Instead of only using 1325 as the backbone of my paper, I am going to delve further into feminist theory on international conflict.

In broad terms, my final paper will rest on the concepts of gendered conflict and gendered peace: the notion that men and women play different roles within conflicts based on the culture and that 'peace' accords are also gendered, and need to be examined in order to see the differential effect (if any) on men and women.

Peace will be defined in feminist terms, using Cynthia Enloe's conceptualization where peace for women means that women themselves have ultimate control over their own lives.

In order to focus the concepts of gendered conflict and gendered peace, Sri Lanka and Chechnya will be used. These two were selected for reasons aforementioned in this blog but just to summarize a few: they are both societies still embroiled one way or another in a longstanding conflict; the conflict is identity-based (primarily identified as ethnic); both societies conflicts have arisen out of periods of transition (Sri Lanka-deconlization, Chechnya- fall of communist regime). Within the realm of gendered peace for example; various peace accords will be examined in order to determine whether or not these agreements are along gender lines.

In sum, it will be a very similar concept as previously described, the main difference being I am expanding my scope to include the notion of conflict and defining the terms conflict and peace in feminist terms.