GenderJust · Truth and Reconciliation Commissions and the Political Economy of Gender Justice: Discursive Power, Authority and the Subaltern
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2017-08-01 → 2019-07-31
- EU contribution
- €195,455
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-ST
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Results in brief
Truth and Reconciliation Commissions and the Political Economy of Gender Justice: Discursive Power, Authority and the Subaltern
The project looks at the question of why international measures aiming at including women and their voices in transitional justice (TJ) mechanisms are so contested. This research aims at analysing the limitations of Gender Justice (GJ) initiatives in TRCs and resistances to them. My hypothesis is that these limitations can be explained by a double dynamics: a) GJ in TRCs is understood very narrowly, with a focus on measures to protect civil and political rights, forgetting socio-economic dimensions of justice, such as access to resources, compensations, jobs; and b) these norms are rarely reinterpreted and applied in new TRCs through the integration of women’s propositions and lessons learnt from previous TRCs. I challenge existing literature on transnational norm diffusion which falls into the trap of presenting two idealized norm-generating communities (i.e. offical TRCs and women’s advocacy groups) by offering a multidirectional approach that reflects on the diversity of views on both sides drawing on critical peace studies and a feminist theorisation of TJ. This approach also takes seriously the need for an intersectional analysis that will, for example, look at the composition of women’s advocacy groups (which women are represented here?). My aim is twofold: to problematize how those who elaborate global norms in the West and those who implement them on the ground commonly think about gender and justice and to extend our understanding of women’s rights beyond laws and policies to include the ways in which women publicly subvert and resignify gender norms in public spaces.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
This project aims to better understand how Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRCs) shape and legitimize international norms on gender justice and how local contexts respond to these norms. While many research projects have focused on the way domestic powerful actors and institutions actively reconstruct new norms to make them fit their own cognitive prior (Acharya 2009; Wiener 2009), the extent to which marginalised actors, such as women victims or victim survivors of mass atrocities, experience and respond to international norms directed to them remains largely unexplored. I consider the cases of South Africa, Rwanda and Colombia. The first objective is to examine the variability of inclusion of gender justice narratives in the TRCs proceedings and policy formulation. I attempt to do this by analysing institutional inputs and networks of actors (Mackay, Kenny and Chappell 2010). The second objective is to understand the role of female witnesses and women collectives in shaping accepted narratives on gender justice (Krizsan and Lombardo 2013). This project is a continuation of the candidate's previous research on local contestation and adaptation of international norms in post-conflict settings. For so doing, the project will follow a qualitative analysis based on TRCs transcripts and semi-structured interviews with strategic groups, providing original empirical evidence of this unexplored level. Data collection will take place during monthly mobilities to each of the countries. These data will then be analysed following grounded theory techniques and critical discourse analysis.The research will be conducted at the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge where the candidate will receive high level training to improve her methodological skills (qualitative data analysis and theory producion) and will greatly benefit from the host organisation's experience in interdisciplinary research on international norms.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- THE CHANCELLOR MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE · CAMBRIDGECoordinatorUnited Kingdom
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union