Feminist Peace and Security Studies: The Gendered Continuum of Peace-War
Course Description
This course focuses on the adjacent fields of Feminist Peace Studies and Feminist Security Studies, which explore issues of peace/ war/ conflict/ security from a variety of feminist perspectives. Scholars working in these overlapping, as well as complementary, fields ask questions about the gendered nature of (conceptions of) peace and war, both in terms of how gender norms shape peace and war as well as how these, in turn, reshape gender norms. The feminist scholars also consider gender relations as causal in militarization and war, making connections across the continuum of violence that spans peace-wartime.
To introduce student to insights from this feminist literature, the course focuses on four main areas: How have feminists challenged the meanings of key concepts such as peace and security? What happens when we study conflict while also paying attention to femininities and masculinities? What can we find out when we ask feminist questions about soldiers and militaries? How has feminist activism, exemplified in the adoption of the so-called women, peace & security agenda at the United Nations, affected global security environments? The course illustrates the theoretical discussion through practical examples taken from feminist research on violent conflicts, as well as their aftermaths, around the world (from Afghanistan to Liberia, from Guatemala to Israel, from Rwanda to India). In this course, students will also learn the tools to carry out their own analyses of peace and war from a feminist perspective.
Dr. Annick T.R. Wibben is Anna Lindh Professor of Gender, Peace & Security at the Swedish Defence University. She received her Ph.D. in International Politics from the University of Wales/Aberystwyth in 2003 and worked at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University from 2001-2005, thereafter (until 2019) she was professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco.
Her research straddles critical security and military studies, peace studies, and feminist international relations. She also has an interest in questions of methodology, representation, and writing. Her current research reflects these varied interests, though she is most frequently associated with Feminist Security Studies and Feminist Peace Research. In addition to numerous articles, she has published a monograph, Feminist Security Studies: A Narrative Approach (2011), and two edited volumes, Researching War: Feminist Methods, Ethics & Politics (2016) and Teaching Peace & War: Pedagogy & Curricula (with Amanda Donahoe, 2020).