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Highlighting Our Members' Research

RNWPS | 25 Jan 2024
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Research Network on Women, Peace and Security launched a new series, 'Research Postcards', to feature and summarize the recent work of their network members. The series aims to increase the representation and discoverability of the research conducted by their members. 

 

Rethinking women, peace, and security through the localization of UNSCR 1325 & National Action Plans: A study of Nepal and Sri Lanka by Luna K.C. and Crystal Whetstone

The article demonstrates that grassroots women’s lived experiences support the principles of the United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 and Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda, even as they are often left out of UNSCR 1325 processes, both state-led and NGO-led. The paper calls women’s NGOs, governments, and policymakers to engage grassroots women – the ‘most local’ women – and prioritize their needs in the WPS and National Action Plans (NAPs) development and implementation processes and Women’s Studies International Forum, 2022 doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2022.102575

 

Indicators and Success Stories: The UN Sustaining Peace Agenda, Bureaucratic Power, and Knowledge Production in Post-War Settings by Maria Martin de Almagro Iniesta 

Despite its commitment to inclusivity, everyday practices, and local knowledge and experiences, the United Nations Sustaining Peace agenda relies on top-down approaches to knowledge production that perpetuate colonial and racial hierarchical power relations found within peacebuilding work, preventing sustainable peace. This top-down approach emphasizes outcomes and efficiency in intervention, which relies on an instrumentalization of gender equality, while feminist objectives such as prioritizing diversity
International Studies Quarterly, 2021 doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqab059

 

“Justice is Lived”: Women’s Senses of Justice and Reparations After Wartime Sexual Violence in Northern Uganda by Ketty Anyeko

During the 1986-2006 war in Northern Uganda between the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels and Uganda’s government, girls of 7-16 years were abducted and kept in captivity by the LRA rebels where they experienced wartime sexual violence and forced marriage. Post abduction, these women and their children live in poverty, are unemployed, lack land, and feel ignored by the Ugandan state that had legal obligations under the UNSCR 1325 on WPS to provide protection and redress to women during and after conflict. The research conceptualized lived justice theory and argues that justice is holistic, relational, and lived in the everyday, and enables women, and their children born in rebel captivity to live dignified lives after wartime sexual violence.

 

War Myths and the Normalization of PTSD and Military Suicide: The Military Suicide Equation by Megan MacKenzie and Nicole Wegner

Military suicide is often assumed to be a product of deployment in combat zones, and increased funding is the solution. This disregards the many other mechanisms that lead to mental health challenges within armed forces, including but not limited to PTSD, and funding alone will not solve this issue. Authors show concern that military suicide is used strategically to foreclose discussions about war and what happens in military employment, two areas often shrouded in secrecy by armed forces.International Political Sociology, 2022 doi.org/10.1093/ips/olab033

 

Is the Future of Peacekeeping Female? Middle Powers, Liberal Internationalism and the 1325 Agenda by Marie-Joëlle Zahar and Laurence Deschamps-Laporte

Middle powers such as Canada, Sweden or Norway have taken the lead in propelling the adoption of a gender perspective in planning and implementing peace operations. However, the authors note critically slow progress on this front, and argue that, while global anti-gender backlash is critical and has serious implications for policy, it is not the main driver of the limited results of the WPS agenda in the peacekeeping space. Instead, this research documents the manner in which middle powers have compromised Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 2023 doi.org/10.1080/17502977.2023.2214962

Keywords: 
Research Network on Women Peace and Security
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