Abstract
How are women’s voices represented in human security? What are the challenges for granting women security and what constitutes insecurities for women? The anthology The Search for Lasting Peace: Critical Perspectives on Gender-Responsive Human Security tries to answer these questions by investigating different aspects of human security. The contributions to the book is based on action-research, which aims at moving scholarly works beyond academia in order to contribute to ‘meaningful change on the ground’ (Boyd: 12). This is underlined by the fact that several of the contributing authors are engaged in activist and/or implementing activities.
Departing from a feminist critique of security, Rosalind Boyd argues in the introduction that the public/private split, as well as the dichotomous distinction between peace and conflict, need to be transcended in order to understand the insecurities of women. In addition, women must be allowed to speak about security issues on their own record, if peace and security are to be achieved.
The book is structured in three parts. The first part of the book provides, together with the introduction, a presentation of the discussion of human security and gender and the implementation of United Nations (UN) Security Council resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security. The second part is presented as ‘Women’s testimonies’ and includes four case studies where gender and human security are actualized in different ways. The last part problematizes the ways that gender has been dealt with (or not) when efforts to assure human security have been undertaken in processes of transitional justice, as well as disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) processes.
Sexual violence is a recurring theme in several of the chapters. In a case study of the post-conflict justice and reconciliation process in East Timor, Corey Levine shows how sexual violence is de facto defined as rape. This constitutes a very narrow understanding of violence as it leaves out all other forms of violence against women. Moreover, as the UN mandated Special Crime Unit only dealt with cases during a narrow time-frame, much of the conflict-related sexual violence did not fall under its jurisdiction. Another problem is how to estimate the harm of rape. This is discussed by Colleen Duggan et al. in a chapter on post-conflict justice in Guatemala and Peru. It provides a deepened understanding of the far-reaching effects of rape on women’s possibilities to make a living and to participate in social and political life. These two chapters are action-research at its best: well contextualized accounts that contribute to scholarly discussions and provide important information to improve implementation processes.
Reading the book, some principally important questions came to mind. The first pertains to the role of theoretically informed analysis and academic context when doing action-research. Nag Lao Liang Won et al. presents an intriguing case of how the collection of women’s testimonies of sexual violence in Burma attracts unwanted forms of attention from UN agencies, Western non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the media. This case hints at several interesting interpretations, but in order to detail them out the authors would have benefitted from using previous research and feminist theory. Even when engaging with local activists, it is important to use the full scholarly toolbox in order to improve understanding and promote change.
The cruel eye-witness stories presented by Dolores Chew in the chapter on the massacre in Gujarat, India, actualize a second question: how should we represent women’s vulnerabilities in order to serve the purpose of making women’s lives more secure? As noted in the chapter by Won, attention to horror-stories may indeed be problematic to handle regarding the integrity of the victims, but also in relation to how they can be used politically. Ethel Brooks (2002) points out that focusing on horror-stories tends to hide structural contexts and postcolonial relations. Thus, such accounts risk directing resources and measures towards single cases, rather than to address underlying structural problems.
My third question regards the conceptualization of gender. The comparative study of the implementation of 1325 action plans in Canada, the UK and the Netherlands, presented in the chapter by Gunilla de Vries Lindestam, criticizes the implementation process for understanding gender as equaling women. However, in the end she finds herself using the same understanding of gender. Moreover, in her recommendations gender (or women) is treated as primarily an administrative challenge. Since the idea of human security is strongly linked to liberal notions of the individual, it is important to discuss how a feminist understanding of gender as a power-laden relation can be conceptualized in this field. A theoretical discussion providing a point of reference would have been beneficial for all contributions. It would have tied the chapters together better and it would have put gender on an equal theoretical standing with human security.
All in all, the book provides interesting insights into gendered aspects of human security, and is a worthwhile read to academics, activists and practitioners.