Kumudini Samuel - The Political Economy of Conflict and Violence Against Women: Towards Feminist Framings From the South

The Political Economy of Conflict and Violence Against Women shows that neoliberalism and globalisation are a war against women in peace-time. The structural violence of economic system fuels further conflicts and wars, which are not aberrations from the normal, but are a continuation of capitalist patriarchys war against nature and women. Most important, this important book highlights how the feminist ethics and economics of care contributes to developing new economic models for feminist peacebuilding.

Dr Vandana Shiva, author of Who Really Feeds the World? and Earth Democracy

POLITICAL ECONOMY OF CONFLICT AND
VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

CASES FROM THE SOUTH

Edited by Kumudini Samuel, Claire Slatter and
Vagisha Gunasekara

Political Economy of Conflict and Violence Against Women: Cases from the South was first published in 2019 by Zed Books Ltd, The Foundry, 17 Oval Way, London SE11 5RR, UK.

www.zedbooks.net

Editorial Copyright Kumudini Samuel, Claire Slatter and Vagisha Gunasekara, 2019.

Copyright in this Collection Zed Books 2019.

The right of Kumudini Samuel, Claire Slatter and Vagisha Gunasekara to be identified as the editors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

Typeset in Plantin and Kievit by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon
Index by Dawn Dobbins
Cover design by Steve Leard
Cover photo Ivor Prickett, New York Times, Panos Pictures

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of Zed Books Ltd.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-78699-611-4 hb
ISBN 978-1-78699-610-7 pb
ISBN 978-1-78699-612-1 pdf
ISBN 978-1-78699-613-8 epub
ISBN 978-1-78699-614-5 mobi

To Vijay K. Nagaraj

Friend and colleague, creative and provocative thinker and strategist, free-spirited eclectic whose intellect and wisdom, grassroots activism and international work and above all humanity inspired so many in both the South and the North. He will forever be remembered and sorely missed.

Keep walking on these paths

They have been laid for you

Holding your hand

Here I am walking

I am walking

Lyrics from Chal Diye by Zeb and Haniya and Javed Bashir, Coke Studio, Pakistan, translated from the Urdu much loved by Vijay.

CONTENTS

Kumudini Samuel and Vagisha Gunasekara

Vagisha Gunasekara and Vijay K. Nagaraj

Elizabeth Cox

Michelle Kopi

Cecilia Lpez Montao and Mara-Claudia Holstine

Roshmi Goswami

Yaliwe Clarke and Constance OBrien

Fahima Hashim

Graphs

Figures

Tables

Kumudini Samuel is an Executive Committee Member of DAWN, engaged in its cross-cutting work and concentrating on the domain of political restructuring and social transformation. She lives and works in Sri Lanka and is a co-founder and current Director, Programmes and Research at the Women and Media Collective. She has a Masters in Womens Studies from the University of Colombo and has written and worked on gender and politics, conflict and transitions, womens movements, and sexuality.

Claire Slatter is a founding member and current Board Chair of DAWN. A Fijian national, she has an MA (Political Studies) from the Australian National University and a PhD (Public Policy) from Massey University and taught politics at the University of the South Pacific for 23 years. She has written, engaged in advocacy and done consulting work on issues of regional concern including neoliberal reforms, trade liberalisation, democracy and human rights and gender and development.

Vagisha Gunasekara is a Sri Lankan researcher, and a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Social Studies of the Open University of Sri Lanka. She is affiliated with the Social Scientists Association (SSA), Sri Lanka. She received her PhD in political science from Purdue University, USA. She takes primarily a political economy approach in studying particular entanglements of gender and conflict in rapidly changing situations in the South Asia region.

Yaliwe Clarke is a Lecturer in the Gender Studies Section in the School of African and Gender Studies, Anthropology and Linguistics (Faculty of Humanities), University of Cape Town. She is also a Researcher in the African Gender Institute. Over the years Yaliwe has interacted with African womens rights activists and peace-builders/conflict resolution practitioners and gained extensive continental training experience in gender and peace-building.

Elizabeth Cox is an active contributor to Pacific regional and national networks of Ending Violence Against Women (EVAW) organisations, and has 40 years of experience and understanding of development and change across Melanesian communities in the region. She is a technical advisor and contractor in capacity development and knowledge production in Papua New Guinea.

Roshmi Goswam i is from Assam and is a founding member of the North-East Network. She was Program Officer with the Ford Foundation in New Delhi for several years, programming on womens rights, before moving on to UN Women in New York. She pioneered work with women in conflict-affected regions of India, including documenting and analysing the impact of war and conflict on the lives of women.

Fahima Hashim is a womens rights defender and activist, researcher and trainer. She serves as the Director for Salmmah Womens Resource Centre, Khartoum, Sudan. She has over 25 years of experience in the area of gender and development, with a special emphasis on womens rights and sexuality, violence against women and peace-working with women and youth in conflict and post-conflict situations.

Mara-Claudia Holstine is an architect and political scientist with experience in international trade, enterprise administration and financial operation, gender and the Colombian conflict. She is Executive Director and Legal Representative of International Center for Social and Economic Thought (CiSoe) Colombia, as well as Managing Director of the CiSoe Institute based in Washington, DC.

Michelle Kopi is a Development Programme Coordinator with the New Zealand High Commission in Papua New Guinea. She specialises in conflict security and development and has eight years work experience in project management, research, social and community development in conflict situations, governance, organisational development, gender equality and social inclusion.

Cecilia Lpez Montao is an economist, researcher, lecturer and Colombian politician. One of her main legislative initiatives was the creation of the legal commission for the Equality of Women and Law 1413 of 2010. She currently serves as president and founding member of CiSoe.

Vijay K. Nagaraj was a researcher, writer, activist and teacher. He taught at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Bombay, India and a secondary school in Colombo. He worked with Amnesty International, India, the International Centre for Human Rights Policy in Geneva, and the Centre for Poverty Analysis and the Law and Society Trust in Colombo, Sri Lanka. He worked on a range of issues from rural community empowerment in Rajasthan to evictions and militarisation, constitutional reform and social, economic and cultural rights and housing rights in the North, in Sri Lanka. Sadly, Vijay passed away in 2017.

Dr. Constance OBrien now retired, previously taught courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels at the University of Cape Towns Department of Social Development. She was also the postgraduate research coordinator for several years and presently supervises doctoral students. Her main interests lie in post-conflict peace-building and she is currently involved in a rural development programme.