November 2016 – owen morgan UBC term 1, 2016

Big Idea part 10: Reflect and Connect [FNIS100]

As a non-Indigenous person, raised in the settler-colonial nation of what is now called Australia, by a middle-class family who are privileged by multiple facets of their identity, it was not until recently I realised that allyship is not as simple as voicing support for Indigenous peoples, nor can it be self-proclaimed. While it was not the intention of the course to impart guilt, Indigenous Foundations helped me understand that since my ancestors “have blood on their hands” (whether that be figuratively or literally), I have the responsibility to educate myself and offer my support in the pursuit of justice for Indigenous peoples around the world whenever I can.

It did this by meticulously unpacking terminology commonly used in discourse surrounding Indigenous issues, much of which is outdated and deemed offensive, in order to establish a foundation for respectful dialog; by analysing the history of the colonial project and how laws and treaties were manipulated by settlers in legal to-and-fros with Indigenous peoples in order to maximize their land acquisition; and by exploring ways in which depictions of Indigenous peoples in Western pop culture and media have largely been molded to coincide with existing imperialist agendas through vilification and bastardisation.

One recurring difficulty is that the complexity introduced by the varying interests of a diverse range of Indigenous cultures, as well as the abstraction of the truth by these imperialist versions of history often lead to an impasse in discussion about ways forward. However, a kind of positive positive energy was fostered during class, which encouraged us to see these complications as motivation to work harder rather than as obstacles to progress.

Now more than ever, citizens and governments of settler-colonial nations must admit to their frailty, confront and accept responsibility for their violent histories and practise empathy in heeding the instruction of traditional owners of the land they live on, in regards to humanity’s relationship with the natural world, deeply entrenched sociopolitical injustices and how we can most effectively harmonise and address the several impending crises that threaten our population.

Short Blog Essay #3: War and Conflicted Related Sexual Violence [GRSJ102]

Given its short documented history and lack of recognition in international law, sexual violence in conflict environments remains a contentious field of study. Both the PRIO and USIP policy briefs uphold that in addition to this perceived political insignificance, methodological shortcomings and equivocal definitions have rendered most conclusions regarding the patterns of wartime sexual violence invalid. In acknowledging the complexity of the issue and the discordance between how relevant terms are defined across studies, both reports accordingly address the definitional considerations in their first pages.

The PRIO policy brief, Sexual Violence in Armed Conflicts, outlines how the legal definition of rape in conflict has evolved since its inception following the ICTR (International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda) and ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in 1993, showing that formal meanings assigned to these novel terms are merely tentative, prone to policy changes and volatile international political relationships. While this isn’t necessarily negative, the USIP report, Wartime Sexual Violence: Misconceptions, Implications and Ways Forward, attributes the slow accumulation of relevant knowledge to these ambiguities, and explicitly states that it does “not advocate any particular definition” in order to maintain credibility even as these definitions are reformed.

The PRIO brief gives an abridged timeline of sexual violence in armed conflict since 1980 and the UN Security Council Resolutions that were introduced in response. The report arrives at a small set of suggestions for scholars and policymakers, namely to direct their efforts toward the plight and status of war children, the impact on the reproductive health of victims, the stigmatisation of victims and commonly held misconceptions about the perpetrators, victims and motivations of wartime sexual violence.

Much of the paper examines the history of this violence, whereas the USIP report addresses ten common misconceptions surrounding the issue, effectively summarising a comprehensive list of existing literature and statistics, all of which was published post-1980. In doing so, it unpacks and interrogates simplified hypotheses that attempt to infer causal relationships between contextual variables, demographics and prevalence of wartime sexual violence, such as those adapted from Seiferf (referred to in PRIO report):

Sexual violence is an integral part of warfare
Sexual violence is a weapon of terror and revenge, used to inflict humiliation upon male opponents and to reaffirm own masculinity
Sexual violence can be understood as a way of destroying an opponent’s culture
Sexual violence can be seen as an outcome of misogyny

For example, in the conclusion, the first hypothesis in the list above is challenged as the authors compare the passive victims of both rape and gun violence during wartime – the former were intentionally violated, whereas in most cases where noncombatants are killed by crossfire it is accidental.

Furthermore, the authors challenge misconceptions related to the ubiquity of sexual violence in war, the prevalence of the problem in African countries and ethnic wars, the gender of victims and perpetrators (as well as whether they belong to rebel groups, state militaries or are even combatants at all), the nature of the violence (whether it is strategic or opportunistic) and claims about trends in wartime sexual violence. These misconceptions, and the recognition of flaws in our current knowledge of the phenomena as well as commonly accepted false correlations (for example, between decreasing overall level of lethal violence and decreasing level of wartime rape) form the basis of the policy recommendations made at the end of the report.

reported-wartime-rape

Overall, the analyses are thorough and give clear direction to future research and policy. However, one drawback of the policy briefs is that they fail to adequately explain the reasons for and effects of these misconceptions. For example, upon reading the “Misconception: An African Problem” section of the USIP report, I thought about how media biases play a major role in influencing these misconceptions. In particular, how perpetuation of nationalist principles and white saviour narratives by Western mainstream media outlets effectively absolves colonial military forces from responsibility for instances of wartime rape, and hence from prosecution. In turn, such sexual violence is associated with the “other,” or that which is foreign, which breeds fear of and contempt for immigrants, ethnic minorities and people of colour living in the U.S. and other white imperialist nations.

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Bibliography

Chun, Suk and Inger Skjelsbæk. 2010. Sexual Violence In Armed Conflicts. Oslo: International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO).
Cohen, Dara Kay, Amelia Hoover Green, and Elisabeth Jean Wood. 2013. Wartime Sexual Violence: Misconceptions, Implications, And Ways Forward. Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace (USIP).

Big Idea part 9: Prepare a page for the final paper [FNIS100]

My big idea project will focus on the appropriation of Indigenous cultural heritage (particularly attire) in Western fashion, art and music in Western pop culture and niche subcultures. This choice was inspired by recent online media attention on youth at music festivals (predominantly white) wearing Native headdress, as well as on American college students dressing up in similarly racist costumes on Halloween or at themed parties.

I’m learning that not only is this issue being discussed broadly in blogs, textbooks and articles from an Indigenous studies perspective, but there is a range of literature that covers cultural appropriation from a legal angle, by criticising current intellectual property laws for their incompatibility with and insensitivity of endangered cultural heritage. By consolidating these two different directions, my final paper will formulate a robust ethical argument that will hopefully impose moral obligations upon the perpetrators of appropriative behaviours.