Gender, Conflict and Security: Perspectives from South Asia
| Date | 01 August 2017 |
| Published date | 01 August 2017 |
| DOI | 10.1177/2347797017710560 |
| Author | Shweta Singh |
| Subject Matter | Guest Editorial |
Gender, Conflict
Journal of Asian Security
and International Affairs
and Security: Perspectives
4(2) 149–157
2017 SAGE Publications India
from South Asia
Private Limited
SAGE Publications
sagepub.in/home.nav
DOI: 10.1177/2347797017710560
http://aia.sagepub.com
Shweta Singh1
Abstract
This article provides an overview to this special issue of JASIA, entitled ‘Gender,
Conflict and Security: Perspectives from South Asia’. Gender intersects with
conflict and security and yet remains at the margins of academic theorizing,
policy priority and practitioner perspectives in South Asia. This special issue
puts forth fresh insights into how and why the lived experiences of women in
South Asia (particularly from areas of protracted conflict such as Nepal, India and
Sri Lanka) are different? And how and why these impinge on the global discourse
on security? It argues that this analysis is pertinent not just from the standpoint
of academic theorizing on security but also from the perspective of inter-
national security policy like the United Nations led Women, Peace and Security
Agenda. This is the 17th year of the United Nations Security Council Resolution
(UNSCR) 1325, and only Nepal and Afghanistan in South Asia have a National
Action Plan. This special issue also critically examines the key gaps in the inter-
national policy on Women, Peace and Security Agenda and how it ‘speaks’ or
‘not speaks’ to the contextual reality of South Asia.
Keywords
Gender, Conflict, Security, South Asia, ‘Women, Peace and Security’, UNSCR 1325
Theme
Gender intersects with conflict and security yet remains at the margins of academic
theorizing, policy priority and practitioner perspectives in South Asia. While there
have been gender incursions into the core domains of international relations and
its subfields, the discipline of international relations in South Asia still largely
1 Assistant Professor and Assistant Dean of Students, Department of International Relations, South
Asian University, New Delhi, India.
Corresponding author:
Shweta Singh, Assistant Professor and Assistant Dean of Students, Department of International
Relations, Faculty of Social Sciences, South Asian University, New Delhi, India.
E-mail: shwetasingh@sau.ac.in
150
Journal of Asian Security and International Affairs 4(2)
remains dominated by masculine, state centric, realist and neorealist analyses.
The spaces for alternative ways of thinking remain narrow, and the path to chal-
lenge the dominant analysis of state, conflict and security still remains long and
arduous in the region.
Current gaps in knowledge emanating from the region provide an incentive to
re-interrogate the complex interplay among gender, conflict and security in South
Asia. This is undergirded in the assumption that women’s ‘lived experiences’ in
South Asia are different, and there is need to push for making the ‘everyday political’
(Enloe, 1989) and bringing it to the ‘international’ realm of high politics. Enloe
(2000, p. 300) states, ‘Femininity as a concept and women as actors need to be
made the objects of analytical curiosity when we are trying to make sense of inter-
national political processes.’ The ‘gendered lived experiences’ in South Asia are
enmeshed in differing hierarchies of identities, such as religion, caste, class
and region, which call for multilayered, multi-voiced analysis of the analytical
category of gender itself.
This special issue1 puts forth fresh insights on how and why the lived experi-
ences of women in South Asia (particularly from areas of protracted conflict, such
as Nepal, India and Sri Lanka) are different? And how and why it impinges on the
global discourse on security? The attempt has been made to strike a conversation
between local and the global and tether the analysis theoretically to the frames of
feminist security studies. From the standpoint of security, the analysis will push to
rethink the normative, the ontological and the epistemological frames of enquiry
through the gender lens.
This analysis is pertinent not just from the standpoint of academic theorizing
on security but also from the perspective of international security policy like
United Nations led Women, Peace and Security Agenda. The UN Security
Council adopted the landmark Resolution 1325 (S/RES/1325) on women,
peace and security on 31 October 2000, through which it acknowledged the
impact of armed conflict on women, brought women’s ‘lived experience’ to the
centre stage of global discourse on peace and security, and reaffirmed the need
to ensure women’s role in post-conflict reconstruction, peacekeeping and
peacebuilding. In 2015, to mark the 15th anniversary of UNSCR 1325, the
UN Security Council launched the Global Study on Resolution 1325 and unan-
imously passed Resolution 2242, which reaffirmed the international commu-
nity’s commitment to the Women, Peace and Security Agenda. UN Women
Global Study (2015) made a strong case for the localization of the normative
agenda of Resolution 1325.
The implementation of UNSCR 1325 has been slow, and since 2004, the
Security Council called on the member states to implement UNSCR 1325 through
the development of National Action Plans (NAPs) or other national level strate-
gies.2 This is the 17th year of the UNSCR 1325, and only Nepal and Afghanistan
in South Asia have drafted an NAP. South Asia, therefore, faces a critical challenge
from the standpoint of the implementation of UNSCR 1325. This special issue also
aims to explore key gaps in terms of international policy on Women, Peace and
Security Agenda, and how it ‘speaks’ or ‘not speaks’ to the contextual reality of the
region. In the process, the special issue would attempt to bridge the gap between
academic and policy/practitioner discourse on gender, conflict and security.
...
To continue reading
Request your trial