Laura McLeod - Gender Politics and Security Discourse: Personal-Political Imaginations and Feminism in Post-Conflict Serbia

This book investigates competing modes of thought about gender security and aims to understand the policy implications of personal-political imaginations.

The work draws upon extensive research conducted by the author in Serbia to develop a comprehensive picture of how feminist and women's organising relates to the broader national and international contexts surrounding gender security. Through an innovative analytical framework of personal-political imaginations, the book explores the role that memories, perceptions and hopes about conflict and post-conflict have upon the logics of gender security. It investigates how contrasting and competing modes of thought about 'gender security' are made, paying attention to how the dynamics of gender politics in Serbia shape the security discourse and narratives of activists. The volume explores in detail how feminist and women's organisations have responded to UNSCR 1325 by analysing two policy debates and campaigns that seek to 'achieve' its goals and gender security in Serbia: (1) feminist antimilitarism, and (2) connecting domestic violence to the abuse of small arms and light weapons. Ultimately, the book argues that the configuration of gender security discourse is intimately linked to personal-political imaginations of conflict and post-conflict.

This book will be of much interest to students of gender politics, conflict studies, critical security studies, European politics and IR in general.

Laura McLeod is a lecturer in International Politics at the University of Manchester, UK, and has a PhD in security discourse from the University of Sheffield.

Series: War, Politics and Experience
Series Editor: Christine Sylvester

Experiencing War
Edited by Christine Sylvester

The Political Psychology of War Rape
Studies from Bosnia and Herzegovina
Inger Skjelsbk

Gender, Agency and War
The maternalized body in US foreign policy
Tina Managhan

War as Experience
Contributions from International Relations and feminist analysis
Christine Sylvester

War and the Body
Militarisation, practice and experience
Edited by Kevin McSorley

The Politics of Protest and US Foreign Policy
Performative construction of the war on terror
Cami Rowe

Joy and International Relations
A new methodology
Elina Penttinen

Women and Militant Wars
The politics of injury
Swati Parashar

Fictional International Relations
Gender, pain and truth
Sungju Park-Kang

Bodies, Power, and Resistance in the Middle East
Experiences of subjectification in the occupied Palestinian territories
Caailin Ryan

Masquerades of War
Edited by Christine Sylvester

Gender Politics and Security Discourse
Personal-political imaginations and feminism in 'post-conflict' Serbia
Laura McLeod

Personal-political imaginations and feminism in post-conflict Serbia

Laura McLeod

First published 2016
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2016 Laura McLeod

The right of Laura McLeod to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him/her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
[CIP data]

ISBN: 978-1-138-79566-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-75825-1 (ebk)

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The themes covered in this book have occupied my thoughts for the best part of a decade, and so I am grateful to a number of people who have at some point helped me or joined in with the adventure of writing this book.

These ideas initially took shape at the University of Sheffield, which was my first intellectual home. There, I would like to thank Garrett Brown and Brian White for their encouragement as I started to engage with Serbia, gender security and feminism. I am particularly grateful to Chris Kitchen for his constant encouragement and for believing in me. I am also thankful to Caroline Kennedy-Pipe (now at the University of Hull) for encouraging me to embark upon the PhD that developed the early ideas for this book. However, much of the writing took place across the Pennines at the University of Manchester, where I have worked since 2011. I consider myself lucky to be surrounded by colleagues who not only intellectually challenge me, but also make work a fun place to be: I want to thank all of them for this. However, I am indebted to Karen Buckley, Cristina Masters, Andreja Zevnik, Aoileann Ni Mhurchu, Adrienne Roberts, Ian Bruff, James Pattison and Veronique Pin-Fat. I would like to make a special mention here for Georgina Waylen, who has long offered me unstinting support, guidance and understanding from fostering my initial forays into gender and IR, in nurturing my attempts to complete this project, but also for continuing to help me navigate all aspects of academic life.

There are many people who have helped me in writing this book along the way reading draft chapters, helping me work out the trickier things, or encouraging me to get on and write this! Thank you to Marysia Zalewski, Laura Shepherd, Holly Snaith, Filip Ejdus, Gary Rivett, Rachel Johnson, Carole Spray, Florian Reiche, Jojo Nem-Singh and Michael Rossi. Thank you to Gabriel Siles-Brugge and Adrian Gallagher for providing me with an extra boost when I needed it. I would also like to thank Maja Kovac, Jamie Munn, Dusan Radunovi and Marsha Henry for their initial fieldwork support. I extend my gratitude to the academic international relations community: all of you continue to inspire and cheer me not just with your written work, but also with your conference participation and our contact on social media.

Funding from the ESRC between 2005 and 2010 (PTA-031-2005-00220) allowed me to do much of the research for this book, including fieldwork in Serbia and Kosovo during 2008 and 2009. I now consider Belgrade as my second home. I am especially grateful to Adam Hardie, Aleksander Skundri and Gordana Radanovi, who all transcribed and translated my interviews and conducted my telephone calls for me. They were all so much more than just my research assistants. I wish to thank them for all their time and support, but most of all, for their friendship. Thank you also to Kate Lawrence, Vojislav Gregorci and Predrag Obucina for their friendship. A trip in June 2009 took an entirely unplanned and unexpected twist when I got acute appendicitis. The potential stress of having an emergency operation aboard was relieved by the wonderful staff at the Belmedic clinic, and especially the surgeon Dejan Jovanovi. Thanks to Daa Duhaek, Lepa Mladjenovi, Jennifer Carter and Milo Urosevi for helping to connect me with so many people. Thank you also to Gordana Suboti and Jovana Dimitrijevi for taking such an interest in this project, and (in very different ways) for being an inspiration for the future of Serbian feminism. Finally, a huge, massive, immense hvala goes to all of the people who allowed me to interview them I can only hope that this book does your wonderful work justice. All of you have allowed me to be compelled by Serbia in myriad and mysterious ways, and taught me an awful lot about life along the way. Thank you.