International
Conference
22-23 September, 2008, Örebro University, Sweden
Call for Papers
Submission of Abstracts: April 15, 2008
Paper Submission: September 1, 2008
Convenors are Erika Svedberg from the Institute of Thematic Gender Studies
and Örebro University and Annica Kronsell from the Department of Political
Science at Lund University. The convenors were part of a group organizing the
international conference at Lund University: A World in Transition.
Feminist Perspectives on International Relations, in May 1996. This
conference is a follow-up of that successful event. The War Question for
Feminism-conference is organized within the Institute of Thematic Gender
Studies a new two-campus milieu for gender research at Linköping University
and Örebro University in Sweden, led by Professors Nina Lykke and Anna
Jónasdóttir.
Theme 1: War as a Feminist Issue
The central argument for this theme is that war is a feminist
issue/question.
There is a long-standing and historical split within the women?s movement on
whether to be pro-nation or pro-peace which seem to have made feminists
somewhat uncomfortable with the war question. War is a feminist concern
because conflict relations between states or organized groups affect women
as well as men, violence used in violent conflict is often sexualized and
because militaries and arms is a substantial part of public resource
spending. If there would ever be a truly feminist state, would this state
have a military organization? Would it have an army, weapon production and
military spending?
War is an economic issue and feminist researchers should not ignore the
military/defense budget as part of the (welfare) state budget? Arms
production and trade is also connected to military budgets and what would a
feminist analysis of the arms trade come up with? The means used in the
waging of contemporary wars ? like rape, forced prostitution and other forms
of sexual violence seem to be an integral part of the organized forms of
violence. It shows that the means used in war-making are gendered. The trend
for some militaries of western democratic states is to engage in the war on
terror while another trend is to move much more into international
peace-enforcement and peace-keeping. Is the trend to train militaries for
peace-keeping tasks a way to de-militarize the military? Are the efforts of
gender mainstreaming peace-keeping a way to feminize the military?
Theme 2: Militarism and Masculinities
This theme takes the starting point in that the military organization
historically has been exclusively male and part of nation building, in
relation to state militaries or to resistances like guerrilla, insurgency
warfare. Nation building is highly interconnected with militaries with
conscription as an illustrative example. Norms relevant for military
practice like hierarchy, group cohesion and organized violence as problem
solving, have been tied to norms of heterosexual masculinity. How is
masculinity related to the task of the military organization? What is the
relationship between masculinity and the role of the warrior, in the ?war on
terror? militaries, insurgency, and guerrillas or in peacekeeping? Are UN
peace-keepers real men or ?sissies in arms?? Sexuality has been an integral
aspect of the military organization with the wide use of pornographic
material, sexualized language, sexual harassment within bases and
prostitution as well as rape near military bases.
As we are seeing sexualized violence in war being used against both
civilians and soldiers as part of strategic warfare we might ask; what is
the relationship between patriarchy, militarism and misogyny in different
contexts in contemporary warfare?
What does this tell us about the relationship between military violence and
sexuality? Can the military be democratized? Is it possible to think of a
military where men and women serve side by side as comrades, without sexism?
Is it possible to move beyond the heterosexual masculinity norm as an
organizing principle of the military?
Theme 3: Feminist concepts travelling into the area of security, the
military, violent conflicts and peacekeeping operations
The focus of this theme is on travelling concepts. The idea of travelling
concepts was developed in the Women?s Studies/Gender Studies project Athena
with the aim of considering how concepts introduced and developed by
feminist scholars are used for particularly educational but also research
purposes in different European contexts. A central question is how feminist
concepts may be translated across linguistic and cultural barriers while
still conveying the same meaning. What happens when concepts travel?
When
feminist concepts are put into practice, do they acquire new meanings? When
new meanings develop, how can they be understood? What does it tell us about
the context in which they are being used? In this theme we are particularly
concerned with the translation and implementation of feminist concepts into
political, policy and administrative settings. Central questions are how
have, for example, the concepts of gender/gender mainstreaming/gender
perspectives been used or put into practice in security, defense and
military understandings and settings.
One example here is the UN Security Council Resolution 1325. We want to look
at how concepts from feminist research and activism travel from one setting
to for example different national settings of security policy and military
strategy.
We welcome abstracts of no more than 300 words addressing one of the three
themes of the conference. Please send it to the conference organizers:
Deadlines:
Submission of Abstracts: April 15, 2008
Paper Submission: September 1, 2008
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Örebro
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