A Double-edged Sword of Peace? Reflections on the Tension between Representation and Protection in Gendering Liberal Peacebuilding

Abstract Using a postcolonial-feminist approach, this article argues that the way in which gender is framed in peace interventions is symptomatic of the hegemonic way in which the discourses about the representation and protection of women within the liberal intervention model are constructed and institutionalized. Through an analysis of international discourses on the politics of inclusion/exclusion, protection, as well as sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), it illustrates the disempowering effect of instrumentalist interpretations of women's agency. The article concludes that the embedded violence of liberal peacebuilding becomes even more pronounced when the gendered inner workings of international organizations, among others, are placed under scrutiny. It proposes a critical postcolonial-feminist vision that is resistant to universalist conceptions of women, gender and self to overcome the under-theorized gender dimensions of liberal peacebuilding. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This article is partly based upon research conducted while the author was a Peace Studies research fellow at the Consortium for Peace Studies, University of Calgary, Canada in 2010. Notes Kathleen Kuehnast, ‘President Obama's Speech and Gender’, Washington, DC: US Institute of Peace, 20 May 2011 (at: www.usip.org/publications/president-obamas-speech-and-gender). Mary Hope Schwoebel, ‘Women and the Arab Spring’, Washington, DC: US Institute of Peace, 5 May 2011 (at: www.usip.org/publications/women-and-the-arab-spring). Ibid; Kuehnast (see n.1 above). Kathleen R. Carter, ‘Should International Relations Consider Rape a Weapon of War?’, Politics & Gender, Vol.6, No.3, 2010, pp.356–60. Sanam Anderlini, ‘Translating Global Agreement into National and Local Commitments’, in Kathleen Kuehnast, Chantal de Jonge Oudraat and Helga Hernes (eds), Women and War: Power and Protection in the 21 st Century, Washington, DC: US Institute of Peace Press, 2011, pp.23–4. See, for instance, Mark Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars: The Merging of Development and Security, London: Zed Books, 2001; Oliver P. Richmond, ‘The Problem of Peace: Understanding the “Liberal Peace”’, Conflict, Security & Development, Vol.6, No.3, 2006, pp.291–314; Richmond, Peace in International Relations, London: Routledge, 2008; Vivienne Jabri, ‘War, Government, Politics: A Critical Response to the Hegemony of the Liberal Peace’, in Richmond (ed.), Palgrave Advances in Peacebuilding: Critical Developments and Approaches, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, pp.41–57. Relatively speaking, far fewer texts offer a gender critique of peacebuilding. See, for instance, Vivienne Jabri, ‘Feminist Ethics and Hegemonic Global Politics’, Alternatives, Vol.29, No.3, 2004, pp.265–84; Tarja Väyrynen, ‘Gender and UN Peace Operations: The Confines of Modernity’, International Peacekeeping, Vol.11, No.1, 2004, pp.125–42; Väyrynen, ‘Gender and Peacebuilding’, in Richmond (ed.), Palgrave Advances in Peacebuilding: Critical Developments and Approaches, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, pp.137–53. Eli Stamnes, ‘The Responsibility to Protect: Integrating Gender Perspectives into Policies and Practices’, Report No.8, Oslo: Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, 2010, pp.5, 11. The UN Special Envoy for Libya, Abdul Elah al-Khatib, warned that the grave humanitarian conditions following Gaddafi's threat of violence against the demonstrators included ‘significant’ protection concerns over gender-based violence. See UNifeed, ‘UN/Libya’, 4 Apr. 2011 (at: www.unmultimedia.org/tv/unifeed/d/17361.html). US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, also told the Security Council that evidence (referring to the allegations that Libyan government soldiers had been issued Viagra to increase their potential to perform mass rapes) did indeed exist of widespread raping of women within the opposition by Libyan forces. Gordon Lubold, ‘Libyan Forces Use Rape as Weapon of War, Experts Say’, Washington DC: US Institute of Peace, 9 June 2011 (at: www.usip.org/publications/libyan-forces-use-rape-weapon-war). Johann Galtung, Peace by Peaceful Means: Peace and Conflict, Development and Civilization, London: Sage, 1996, p.112. See Neil Cooper, Mandy Turner and Michael Pugh, ‘The End of History and the Last Liberal Peacebuilder: A Reply to Roland Paris’, Review of International Studies, Vol.37, No.4, 2011, pp.1995–2007. 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Interview by author with Thida Khus, Silaka, Phnom Penh, July 2008. Eric Scheye, ‘State-provided Service, Contracting out, and Non-state Networks: Justice and Security as Public and Private Goods and Services’, Paris: OECD, 2009 (at: www.oecd.org/dataoecd/43/8/43599221.pdf), pp.6–7. Ibid., p.8. Aili Mari Tripp, Isabel Casimiro, Joy Kwesiga and Alice Mungwa, African Women's Movements: Changing Political Landscape, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, pp.195–6. Ronald Inglehart, Pippa Norris and Christian Welzel, ‘Gender Equality and Democracy’, Comparative Sociology, Vol.1, Nos 3-4, 2002, pp.321–45. Tripp et al. (see n.55 above), pp.8–9. Josephine Ahikire, ‘Women's Engagement with Political Parties in Contemporary Africa: Reflections on Uganda's Experience’, Policy Brief 65, Johannesburg: Centre for Policy Studies, 2009 (at: www.peacewomen.org/assets/file/Resources/Academic/part_womensengagementpoliticalpartiesafricauganda_ahikire_2010.pdf). Valasek (see n.51 above), pp.4–5. 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