Intersectionality and women's participation in peace negotiations

• Published in: International affairs (London) Vol. 100; no. 6; pp. 2543 - 2561
• Main Authors: Sapiano, Jenna, Jin, Xianan, Heathcote, Gina
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford University Press 04.11.2024
• Subjects: inclusion; gender; peace processes; peace and security; intersectionality; women
• DOI: 10.1093/ia/iiae225
• ISSN: 0020-5850

This article proposes the concept of a ‘travelling’ intersectionality as an alternative to current high-level practitioners' understanding of gender and their expectations of women's participation in peace negotiations. Abstract The Women, Peace and Security resolutions have consistently called for women's increased participation at all levels in institutions and mechanisms for preventing, managing and resolving conflict. Despite a long history of feminist interventions to disrupt categories of gender as a stagnant, ahistorical or geographically consistent structure, rationales for women's inclusion continue to rest on problematic narratives and assumptions. We draw on twenty-nine interviews with practitioners whom we asked to speak about their experiences in peace negotiations and the expectations placed on women involved in these processes. The problematic narratives and assumptions we identify on the basis of these interviews and academic literature have the effect of diminishing women's agency and, thus, their ability to participate in peace negotiations on their terms. Women contribute positively to the durability of peace and the inclusion of gender provisions in agreements. Still, when women's identities are constructed as one-dimensional, the benefits of women's inclusion remain paradoxically a cause for celebration and a partial gain. In this article, we apply theories of intersectionality, informed by Black and African feminisms, to expose women's subject positions that may be made invisible because of assumptions that continue to be associated with calls for women's participation in peace negotiations.