Gender Violence Across War And Peace: Workshop, 17 & 18 May 2018 Call for Papers

This article announces a workshop, as well as a call for papers. The workshop, held on Thursday 17 and Friday 18 May 2018 at the Centre for Women, Peace and Security at the London School of Economics and Political Science, will bring together researchers to explore the ‘crossing’ of gender violence between war and peace and the impact of these ‘crossings’ on the further development of the WPS agenda. 

Read or download the call for papers below, or read the original by LSE Centre for Women, Peace and Security here. 

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Gender violence is under scrutiny as never before. In the proliferation of studies, theories and policies, it is conflict-related gender violence that has received most attention, as demonstrated by the preoccupation of activists and journalists with campaigns of genocidal rape and military sexual slavery, the revival of populist rhetoric depicting refugees as invading misogynists, and the embedding of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda at the United Nations Security Council and in foreign, development and defence ministries. The concentration of attention on gender violence within the bounds of discrete conflicts is understandable, but open to challenge from several directions. For a number of critics, excessive focus on wartime rape obscures other more diffuse or systematic forms of gender violence that predate or outlive any given conflict. Others suggest that modern war has become so complex, so entangled with global flows of information, finance, and weaponry, that it is misleading to fix it in place by reference to territory or the clash of armed groups alone. Where violence accompanies diverse experiences of migration, resettlement, mobilisation or detention, the location of ‘war’ can be difficult to specify. And when violence occurs in the church, school or family home, its relation to military strategies can seem tenuous.

Scholars and activists have responded to the war/peace dichotomy by offering more nuanced frameworks. For example, the “continuum of violence” stresses linkages between times of conflict and apparent normality, and emphasises the role of chronic inequalities of power lying behind and beyond exceptional moments of crisis. Attending to the continuum prompts new questions. When do some forms of gender violence lead to others? How are acts of violence related on a scale from individual to structural? Does the movement across geopolitical boundaries change the character of violence? Is it ever useful to distinguish between ‘public’ and ‘private’ gender violence? How might we best identify precursors to gender violence, and explain its many after-effects? In what ways might policies addressing ‘wartime’ and ‘peacetime’ gender violence be productively reconciled?

This workshop will bring together researchers to explore the ‘crossing’ of gender violence between war and peace and the impact of these ‘crossings’ on the further development of the WPS agenda. Key themes for exploration include:

 Displacement, statelessness, trafficking and gender violence  Masculinities, sexualities and gender violence  The health impacts of wartime gender violence  Radicalisation, extremism and gender violence  Policy linkages across war and peace (e.g. between the WPS agenda and CEDAW)

Deadline: Titles and abstracts of no more than 200 words should be sent with a biography of no more than 30 words to women.peace.security@lse.ac.uk by 10am GMT Monday 5 March 2018.

Workshop: The workshop will be held on Thursday 17 and Friday 18 May 2018 at the Centre for Women, Peace and Security at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Funding: Standard class travel and local accommodation (up to three nights) will be provided for participants who are invited to present, and would otherwise be unable to participate. The organisers particularly welcome the participation of early-career researchers and those from conflict-affected or ODA-recipient countries.

Output: All presenters will be invited to write a post for a dedicated series on the LSE WPS blog. Selected presenters may be invited to submit to the LSE WPS Working Paper Series. A summary report from the workshop will be provided to participants and the funders.

Outcome: It is anticipated that the workshop will identify and facilitate new collaboration opportunities for primary research that may inform academic, policy, practitioner and activist attempts to mitigate gendered violence.

This workshop is part of the Strategic Network on Gender Violence Across War and Peace funded by the Economic and Social Research Council Global Challenges Research Fund.