5 | The Women, Peace and Security Agenda

October 8
In this class, we are introduced to the landmark Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security (2001), obligating state’s to uphold the four ‘pilars’ of the agenda: gender equality and participation, protection, prevention, and, relief and recovery. Nearly 25 years after the passage of the resolution, and with a subsequent number of resolutions that expand the agenda’s remit, we will spend the class exploring the original vision of feminist activists and a case study of its implementation, to discuss whether or not the agenda can be transformational within the institutions of the UN and state-centric security policies and militarism. We will end by conducting a creative thought experiment to re-imagine a feminist future for the Women, Peace and Security agenda (see readings below).

In preparation, in addition to your readings and questions, consider 1-2 ways to creatively imagine a feminist future of WPS. In the words of Sara Ahmed (2017: 2): “If we become feminists because of what the world is NOT, what kind of world are we building?”

Guest Facilitator: Dr. Ulrike Lühe, Postdoctoral Fellow, SPPGA

Hosts:  Rebecca, Elena and Paige

Readings

  1. Basu, Soumita, and Akhila Nagar. “Women, peace, and security.” Routledge Handbook of Feminist Peace Research. Routledge, 2021. 212-221. (9 pages)
  2. Otto, Dianne. “Women, peace, and security.” The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Conflict (2017): 105. (12 pages)
  3. Wright, Hannah, and Columba Achilleos-Sarll. “Towards an abolitionist feminist peace: State violence, anti-militarism, and the Women, Peace and Security agenda.” Review of International Studies (2024): 1-19. (19 pages)
  4. Harcourt, Wendy. “Imagining Feminist Futures.” The Palgrave Handbook of Gender and Development: Critical Engagements in Feminist Theory and Practice. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2019. 615-623. (8 pages)

Presentation Artist: Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (photo above) – Nona and Layla

Further Reading

  1. Hisako Motoyama (2018) Formulating Japan’s UNSCR 1325 national action plan and forgetting the “comfort women”, International Feminist Journal of Politics, 20:1, 39-53 (14 pages)
  2. Kirby, Paul, and Laura J. Shepherd. “The futures past of the Women, Peace and Security agenda.” International Affairs 92.2 (2016): 373-392.
  3. Shepherd, L. J. (2016). Making war safe for women? National Action Plans and the militarisation of the Women, Peace and Security agenda. International Political Science Review, 37(3), 324-335.
  4. True, Jacqui. “Explaining the global diffusion of the Women, Peace and Security agenda.” International Political Science Review 37.3 (2016): 307-323.
  5. Whetstone, C., & Luna K. C. (2023). Disrupting the Saviour Politics in the Women, Peace and Security Agenda in the Global South: Grassroots Women Creating Gender Norms in Nepal and Sri Lanka. Journal of Asian Security and International Affairs, 10(1), 95-121.
  6. George, N., Shepherd, L. (2016). Women, Peace and Security in Regional, National, and Local Contexts: Exploring the Implementation and Integration of UNSCR 1325. International Political Science Review, 37(4): 296-306.
  7. Karie Cross Riddle (2022) “Critical feminist just peace”: a grounded theory approach to Women, Peace and Security, International Feminist Journal of Politics, 24:5, 790-812
  8. Haastrup, Toni, and Jamie J. Hagen. 2020. “Global Racial Hierarchies and the Limits of Localization via National Action Plans.” In New Directions in Women, Peace and Security, edited by Soumita Basu, Paul Kirby, and Laura J. Shepherd, 133–151. Bristol: Bristol University Press.
  9. Medie, Peace A. Global norms and local action: The campaigns to end violence against women in Africa. Oxford University Press, USA, 2020.
  10. Martín de Almagro, María. “Producing participants: Gender, race, class, and women, peace and security.” Global Society 32.4 (2018): 395-414.
  11. Achilleos-Sarll, Columba, and Yasmin Chilmeran. “Interrogating the “local” in Women, Peace and Security: reflections on research on and in the UK and Iraq.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 22.4 (2020): 596-605.
  12. Singh, Shweta. “Re-thinking the ‘Normative’ in United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325: Perspectives from Sri Lanka.” Journal of Asian Security and International Affairs 2 (2017): 219-238. (19 pages)