Gender, Violent Conflict and Development

Contents: Acknowledgements. Foreword: Gender, violent conflict and development: challenges of practice/Dubravka Zarkov. Introduction: On militarism, economy and gender: working in global contexts/Dubravka Zarkov. I. Claiming the spheres: 1. The culture of peace, or the culture of the sound-bite? Development practice and the \'Tyranny of Policy\'/Judy El-Bushra. 2. Rethinking gender, violent conflict and development from local perspectives: reclaiming political agency in South Asia/Edda Kirleis. 3. Global issues, local realities: a note from a Post-Tsunami Coastal Town in Sri Lanka/Sarala Emmanuel. II. Examining the past, thinking the future: 4. Gender, development and conflict in Mozambique: lessons of  a \'success\' story/Ruthjacobson. 5. Organizing and mobilizing women for peace: some reflections on Sri Lanka/Sunila Abeysekera. 6. Women and violent conflicts in Iraq: a story behind the photographs/Welmoed Koekebakker. 7. Gender and ethnicity in Rwanda: on legal remedies for victims of wartime sexual violence/Chiseche Mibenge. 8. Sketching the militias: constructions of violent masculinity in the East Timor conflict/Henri Myrttinen. III. Changing perspectives: 9. Children and youth in fighting forces: on war slavery and war economies in Africa/Dyan Mazurana and Khristopher Carlson. 10. Interdisciplinary intersections: linking gender studies, development studies and international relations/Terrell Carver. 11. Trauma and healing: cross-cultural and methodological perspectives on post-conflict recovery and development/Annemiek Richters. Bibliography. Notes on contributors.

"The last few decades have witnessed growing theoretical and practical concerns with intersections between violent conflict and development. Links between poverty and natural resources have been minutely explored, and attention has also been given to how state collapse and bad governance have contributed to violent conflict. However, gender relations and ideologies have often been overlooked in theorization of these interconnections, as well as in designing development strategies meant to mend the devastating impact that war leaves on a society.

This book looks at the intersections between development practice and violent conflict from an explicit gender perspective and situates the fields of inquiry within a global condition of neo-liberal economy and militarism. Using the notions of femininity and masculinity as analytical tools, contributors question theoretical, political and policy approaches pertaining to specific development strategies in times of prolonged violent conflict, transitions to peace and post-conflict periods. They further analyse various social, cultural, economic and political processes and relations of power that impact upon different groups of women, men and children in the contexts of militarization and violence." (jacket)