The gender-based violence as an instrument of warfare in armed conflicts
Autor/in:
Adeyanju, Collins G.
Quelle: Journal of Liberty and International Affairs, 6 (2020) 2, S 57-70
Inhalt: The gender-based violence in recent times has become an integral part of the on-going Boko Haram Insurgency in North-East Nigeria. Since the full-scale declaration of combat between the Nigerian state and the insurgent group, the asymmetrical tactics of the group have been evolving, based on its capabilities. The recent spike in the targeted raid and attack on female schools, markets, and female institutions purposely for abduction and kidnapping of women and girls indicated this assertion. Due to the depletion of its fighters and loss of territories, there is a surge in mass deployment of ‘women and young girls’ as material instruments of warfare: fighters, suicide bombers, human shields, bargaining tools, sex slaves, informants, and so on. This article appraises the gender push-pull factors responsible, motivation behind the current behavior, and proffers some policy guidance.
Religious Discourse and Gender Security in Southern Thailand
Autor/in:
Marddent, Amporn
Quelle: ASEAS - Austrian Journal of South-East Asian Studies, 12 (2019) 2, S 225-247
Inhalt: This article describes the complexity of applying human security through the notion of gender equality in southern Thailand where violent conflict has been prevalent for nearly half a century in a Malay-Muslim-dominated society. It explores how the concepts of gender and security have been interpreted in Malay-Muslim leaders’ outlooks. To define security more broadly, the article surveys the various notions of peacebuilding dealing with comprehensive human security and any security threat, thus not limited to state of war or physical violence only. In the prolonged armed violence and conflict, like that faced in Thailand’s Deep South, women’s security and their role in peacebuilding emerge as pertinent concerns. The discontinuities within the narratives of women and security highlight a divergence connected to personal-political imaginations of conflict whereby subtle variations in violent conflict can be seen as the products of different policy prescriptions, local cultural norms, and the project outcomes of women groups supported by governmental organizations and national and international donors. Thus, in order to reflect upon how contemporary security notions are framed, gendered security perceptions ought to be considered as they signify the exercise of peacebuilding programs in the local context. Persistent advocacy of gender equality is about cultural change, which eventually becomes a modality for non-violent society.
Schlagwörter:Thailand; Thailand; Kulturwandel; cultural change; menschliche Sicherheit; human security; Gender; gender; Gleichheit; equality; gender-specific factors; politischer Konflikt; political conflict; Gewalt; violence; Friedenssicherung; peacekeeping; religiöser Konflikt; religious conflict; Islam; Islam; Deep South of Thailand; Gender Security; Malay-Muslim Women; Peacebuilding
SSOAR Kategorie:Friedens- und Konfliktforschung, Sicherheitspolitik, Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung
Social Media, Gender and the Mediatisation of War: Exploring the German Armed Forces’ Visual Representation of the Afghanistan Operation on Facebook
Autor/in:
Shim, David; Stengel, Frank A.
Quelle: Global Discourse, (2017) , 31 S
Inhalt: Studies on the mediatisation of war point to attempts of governments to regulate the visual perspective of their involvements in armed conflict – the most notable example being the practice of ‘embedded reporting’ in Iraq and Afghanistan. This paper focuses on a different strategy of visual meaning-making, namely, the publication of images on social media by armed forces themselves. Specifically, we argue that the mediatisation of war literature could profit from an increased engagement with feminist research, both within Critical Security/Critical Military Studies and within Science and Technology Studies that highlight the close connection between masculinity, technology and control. The article examines the German military mission in Afghanistan as represented on the German armed forces’ official Facebook page. Germany constitutes an interesting, and largely neglected, case for the growing literature on the mediatisation of war: its strong antimilitarist political culture makes the representation of war particularly delicate. The paper examines specific representational patterns of Germany’s involvement in Afghanistan and discusses the implications which arise from what is placed inside the frame of visibility and what remains out of its view.
Schlagwörter:Soziale Medien; social media; Federal Republic of Germany; Bundeswehr; Federal Armed Forces; Afghanistan; Afghanistan; Mediatisierung; mediatization; Krieg; war; Facebook; facebook; öffentliche Meinung; public opinion; Meinungsbildung; opinion formation; Männlichkeit; masculinity; Weiblichkeit; femininity; gender-specific factors; Legitimation; legitimation; soziale Konstruktion; social construction; gender; Technik; engineering; Militär; military
SSOAR Kategorie:Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung, interaktive, elektronische Medien, Friedens- und Konfliktforschung, Sicherheitspolitik
Titelübersetzung:Politikwissenschaft, Terrorismus und Gender
Autor/in:
Herschinger, Eva
Quelle: Historical Social Research, 39 (2014) 3, S 46-66
Inhalt: This contribution aims to give an overview on the state of the art of research on terrorism and gender in the field of Political Science and International Relations (IR). Contemporary analyses of terrorism have begun integrating gender aspects into their frameworks. This article supports the call for a much more coherent use of gender as an analytical category as this is beneficial for the analysis of ter-rorism in a threefold manner. First, gender as an analytical category in the study of terrorism exposes the gender blindness of the term terrorism; second, gender challenges the political myth of protection central to international politics, i.e. that states can legitimately fight wars to protect the vulnerable – vulgo women and children. Third, gender also challenges the myth of an intrinsic peacefulness/vulnerability of women. The paper closes with the plea to integrate a coherent historical dimension into a gendered analysis of terrorism in order to potentially achieve a more empirically attuned theoretical understanding of terrorism and political violence in current times.
Schlagwörter:international relations; gender; Stereotyp; victim; Opfer; violence; stereotype; Gewalt; woman; political violence; Täter; internationale Beziehungen; gender-specific factors; terrorism; politische Gewalt; Terrorismus; political science; Politikwissenschaft; offender
SSOAR Kategorie:Friedens- und Konfliktforschung, Sicherheitspolitik, Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung, Sozialgeschichte, historische Sozialforschung
Profiling terror: gender, strategic logic, and emotion in the study of suicide terrorism
Titelübersetzung:Terrorismusprofile: Geschlecht, strategische Logik und Emotionen in der Erforschung des Selbstmordterrorismus
Autor/in:
Sjoberg, Laura; Gentry, Caron E.
Quelle: Österreichische Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft, 37 (2008) 2, S 181-196
Inhalt: 'Robert Papes viel diskutiertes Buch 'Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism' (2005) zeigt deutlich die Selbstverständlichkeit eines vermeintlich geschlechtsneutralen Zugangs zur Analyse von männlichen und weiblichen SelbstmordterroristInnen. Papes Hauptargument ist, dass Selbstmordterrorismus eine durchaus rationale Strategie politischer AkteurInnen sei, der sich in Form von Kampagnen ausschließlich gegen Demokratien richte. Die Studie benennt zwar Männer wie Frauen als rationale politische Individuen bzw. AkteurInnen, betont zugleich aber bei Frauen stark den emotionalen Aspekt der Motivation. In diesem Artikel argumentieren die Verfasser, dass geschlechtsneutrale Studien wie die von Robert A. Pape nur vermeintlich geschlechtsneutral sind und gerade diese Annahme dazu führt, dass soziale und politische Dimensionen von Geschlechterordnungen ebenso wie die Vergeschlechtlichung des Sozialen und Politischen ausgeblendet werden. Darüber hinaus sagen die Verfasser, dass das Modell der Rational Choice Theorie, wie sie bei Pape eindrücklich angewendet wird, die Kluft zwischen den Geschlechtern noch vergrößert, indem 'männlichen' Werten der Vorzug gegenüber 'weiblichen' gegeben wird. Als Alternative schlagen die Verfasser eine dreifache Modifikation des Zugangs zu einer Beforschung von Selbstmordterrorismus vor, die sowohl politische als auch emotionale Motivationen inkludiert: Vergeschlechtlichte Repräsentationen von SelbstmordattentäterInnen verstärken Stereotype über Geschlecht sowie über Selbstmordterrorismus; das Ausblenden der Komplexität von Motivationen bringt die Vielfalt der Variablen, die in die Entscheidung der 'MärtyrerInnen' einfließen, nicht zum Verschwinden; und ein theoretischer Zugang, der das Emotionale in den Vordergrund stellt, könnte die Verengung des Rational Choice Ansatzes ausgleichen. Der Aufsatz schließt mit Belegen für unsere These am Beispiel der tschetschenischen 'Schwarzen Witwen', womit die der Verfasser Vorschläge als explanatorisch wertvoll diskutiert werden.' (Autorenreferat)
Inhalt: 'Robert Pape's well-received book, 'Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism' (2005), presents what appears to be a gender-neutral study of both male and female suicide terrorists. Pape's main argument is that suicide terrorism is a strategic and rational terror campaign against democracies. While the study argues that male and female suicide terrorists are rational individuals, it depicts women as motivated by emotion. Thus, this article argues that gender-neutral work is rarely gender-neutral and such studies fail to recognize the social and political impact of gender. Furthermore, the authors argue that the rational choice model presented by Pape furthers the gender divide by emphasizing values associated with masculinity over values associated with femininity. As an alternative, the authors propose three propositions to change the study of suicide terrorism to include both political and emotional motivations. They propose that gendered presentations of female suicide bombers reify stereotypical images of gender and of suicide bombers, that silence about the complexity of suicide bombers' motivations does not erase the many variables that go into martyrs' decisions, and that adding emotion to the study of suicide bombing counterbalances the narrowness of the 'strategic actor' model. The essay concludes with evidence from the study of the Chechen 'black widows' that demonstrates the explanatory value of these propositions.' (author's abstract)
Fighting Women: der Einfluss von Entwicklungen am militärischen Arbeitsmarkt auf Geschlechterideologien am Beispiel USA
Titelübersetzung:Fighting women: the impact of military labor market developments on gender ideologies in the US
Autor/in:
Stachowitsch, Saskia
Quelle: Österreichische Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft, 37 (2008) 2, S 165-180
Inhalt: 'Forschungen zu Krieg und Geschlecht werden oftmals von Begrifflichkeiten wie 'Subjektivität', 'Identität', 'Konstruktion' und 'symbolische Repräsentation' angeleitet (Seifert 1996; 2003; Cockburn 1998). Strukturen, Institutionen, sozioökonomische Verhältnisse - kurzum: die materiellen Grundlagen von Gesellschaft - werden kaum systematisch in die Analyse einbezogen. Dieser Beitrag überprüft die Hypothese, dass der Wandel militärischer Geschlechterideologien auf materielle Faktoren zurückzuführen ist, insbesondere auf Veränderungen geschlechtsspezifischer Arbeitsteilung im militärischen und zivilen Bereich, die Folgen von Technologisierung und Spezialisierung von Ökonomie und Kriegsführung sind. Dies geschieht anhand einer theoriegeleiteten, exemplarischen Untersuchung der Darstellung von US-Soldatinnen in The New York Times in den Jahren 1990 bis 2005.' (Autorenreferat)
Inhalt: 'Research on war and gender is often guided by categories such as 'subjectivity', 'identity', 'construction', and 'symbolic representation'. Social structure, institutions, socioeconomic relations - in short: the material base of society - are rarely incorporated into research systematically. This article examines the impact of material factors, especially of gender specific divisions of labor in the civilian and military spheres, on gender ideologies. The article analyzes reporting on U.S. military women in The New York Times from 1990 to 2005 to show how social conditions influence cultural representations of masculinity and femininity.' (author's abstract)
Schlagwörter:personnel policy; civil society; demand; Rekrutierung; Arbeitsteilung; Akteur; soldier; North America; specialization; sozioökonomische Faktoren; social actor; war; Nordamerika; socioeconomic development; mechanization; Bedarf; United States of America; Technisierung; labor market; Arbeitsmarkt; sozioökonomische Entwicklung; gender; Spezialisierung; division of labor; Krieg; military; socioeconomic factors; Militär; USA; woman; sozialer Wandel; Zivilgesellschaft; Soldat; gender-specific factors; social change; recruitment; Personalpolitik
SSOAR Kategorie:Friedens- und Konfliktforschung, Sicherheitspolitik, Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung