Gender, War and Peacebuilding, 5 cr

It is increasingly recognized that war is a profoundly gendered experience. First, differently gendered people experience war differently. Second, war and gender (power) relations are mutually constitutive. Third, gender is a powerful idea and symbolic construct that configures the ways we see and make sense of the world around us, a world which often includes conflict and war. Finally, gender is constitutive of other power relations – including but not only race, class, sexuality – and their intersections are manifest in everyday life as in war and peacebuilding processes. In this discussion-based course we will explore together (teacher and students as co-learners) these gendered dimensions of war, focusing on the post-Cold War period. We will pay particular attention to what feminists have described as the continuum of violence, from the “private” to the “public” sphere, from militarization of everyday living to overt violent conflict. We will address specific issues such as the political economy of war, sexualized and racialized violence, the militarization of gendered and racialized bodies, gendered forms of cooperation with violence and political activism. Finally, we will reflect on the implications of gendered wars for the building of peace and justice, looking at the gendered aspects of “post-conflict” reconstructions, and gendered forms of resistance to political violence.