Gender, Human Security and the United Nations

Gender, Human Security and the United Nations PDF

Author: Natalie Florea Hudson

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2009-09-22

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 1135196931

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This book examines the relationship between women, gender and the international security agenda, exploring the meaning of security in terms of discourse and practice, as well as the larger goals and strategies of the global women's movement. Today, many complex global problems are being located within the security logic. From the environment to HIV/AIDS, state and non-state actors have made a practice out of securitizing issues that are not conventionally seen as such. As most prominently demonstrated by the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (2001), activists for women's rights have increasingly framed women's rights and gender inequality as security issues in an attempt to gain access to the international security agenda, particularly in the context of the United Nations. This book explores the nature and implications of the use of security language as a political framework for women, tracing and analyzing the organizational dynamics of women's activism in the United Nations system and how women have come to embrace and been impacted by the security framework, globally and locally. The book argues that, from a feminist and human security perspective, efforts to engender the security discourse have had both a broadening and limiting effect, highlighting reasons to be sceptical of securitization as an inherently beneficial strategy. Four cases studies are used to develop the core themes: (1) the campaign to implement UN Security Council Resolution 1325; (2) the strategies utilized by those advocating women's issues in the security arena compared to those advocating for children; (3) the organizational development of the UN Development Fund for Women and how it has come to securitize women; and (4) the activity of the UN Peacebuilding Commission and its challenges in gendering its security approach. The work will be of interest to students of critical security, gender studies, international organizations and international relations in general. Natalie Florea Hudson received her PhD in Political Science from the University of Connecticut and is an Assistant Professor at the University of Dayton. She specializes in gender and international relations, human rights, international security studies, and international law and organization.

Gender, Violence, and Human Security

Gender, Violence, and Human Security PDF

Author: Aili Mari Tripp

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2013-11-15

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 0814764908

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The nature of human security is changing globally: interstate conflict and even intrastate conflict may be diminishing worldwide, yet threats to individuals and communities persist. Large-scale violence by formal and informal armed forces intersects with interpersonal and domestic forms of violence in mutually reinforcing ways. Gender, Violence, and Human Security takes a critical look at notions of human security and violence through a feminist lens, drawing on both theoretical perspectives and empirical examinations through case studies from a variety of contexts around the globe. This fascinating volume goes beyond existing feminist international relations engagements with security studies to identify not only limitations of the human security approach, but also possible synergies between feminist and human security approaches. Noted scholars Aili Mari Tripp, Myra Marx Ferree, and Christina Ewig, along with their distinguished group of contributors, analyze specific case studies from around the globe, ranging from post-conflict security in Croatia to the relationship between state policy and gender-based crime in the United States. Shifting the focus of the term “human security” from its defensive emphasis to a more proactive notion of peace, the book ultimately calls for addressing the structural issues that give rise to violence. A hard-hitting critique of the ways in which global inequalities are often overlooked by human security theorists, Gender, Violence, and Human Security presents a much-needed intervention into the study of power relations throughout the world.

The Gender Imperative

The Gender Imperative PDF

Author: Betty A. Reardon

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 468

ISBN-13: 1136198121

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The book asserts that human security derives from the experience and expectation of human well-being which depends on four essential conditions: a life sustaining environment, the meeting of essential physical needs, respect for the identity and dignity of persons and groups, protection from avoidable harm and expectations of remedy from them. The book demonstrates their integral relationship to human security. Patriarchy being the germinal paradigm from which most major human institutions such as the state, the economy, organised religions and social relations have evolved, the book argues that fundamental inequalities must be challenged for the sake of equality and security. The fundamental point raised is that expectation of human well-being is a continuing cause of armed conflict which constitutes a threat to peace and survival of all humanity and human security cannot exist within a militarised security system. The editors of the book bring together 14 essays which critically examine militarised security in order to find human security pathways, show ways in which to refute the dominant paradigm, indicate a clear gender analysis that challenges the current system, and suggests alternatives to militarised security. With a mix of female and male feminist scholar activists as contributors, the book makes an important contribution to a new discourse on human security.

Gendering Human Security in Afghanistan

Gendering Human Security in Afghanistan PDF

Author: Ben Walter

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2017-06-14

Total Pages: 180

ISBN-13: 1317265203

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This book employs the concept of human security to show what the term means from the perspective of women in Afghanistan. It engages with a well-established debate in academic and policy-making contexts regarding the utility of human security as a framework for understanding and redressing conflict. The book argues that this concept allows the possibility of articulating the substantive experiences of violence and marginalisation experienced by people in local settings as well as their own struggles towards a secure and happy life. In this regard, it goes a long way to making sense of the complex dynamics of conflict which have confounded Western policy-makers in their ongoing state-building mission in Afghanistan. However, despite this inherent potential, the idea of human security still needs refinement. Crucially, it has benefitted from critical feminist and critical social theories which provide the conceptual and methodological depth necessary to apprehend what a progressive ethical program of security looks like and how it can be furthered. Using this framework, the work provides a critical reconstruction of the effect of the US-led Western Intervention on women’s experiences of (in)security in the three provincial contexts of Nangarhar, Bamiyan and Kabul. This reconstruction is drawn from a wealth of historical and contemporary sociological research alongside original fieldwork undertaken in Delhi, India, during 2011 with women and men from the country’s different communities. This book will be of much interest to students of human security, state-building, gender politics, war and conflict studies and IR in general.

The Gender and Security Agenda

The Gender and Security Agenda PDF

Author: Chantal de Jonge Oudraat

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-05-27

Total Pages: 279

ISBN-13: 1000073955

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This book examines the gender dimensions of a wide array of national and international security challenges. The volume examines gender dynamics in ten issue areas in both the traditional and human security sub-fields: armed conflict, post-conflict, terrorism, military organizations, movement of people, development, environment, humanitarian emergencies, human rights, governance. The contributions show how gender affects security and how security problems affect gender issues. Each chapter also examines a common set of key factors across the issue areas: obstacles to progress, drivers of progress and long-term strategies for progress in the 21st century. The volume develops key scholarship on the gender dimensions of security challenges and thereby provides a foundation for improved strategies and policy directions going forward. The lesson to be drawn from this study is clear: if scholars, policymakers and citizens care about these issues, then they need to think about both security and gender. This will be of much interest to students of gender studies, security studies, human security and International Relations in general.

Gender, Violence and Security

Gender, Violence and Security PDF

Author: Laura Shepherd

Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.

Published: 2013-07-04

Total Pages: 168

ISBN-13: 1848136811

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How do understandings of the relationships between gender, violence, security and the international inform policy and practice in which these notions are central? What are the practical implications of basing policy on problematic discourses? In this highly original poststructural feminist critique, the author maps the discursive terrains of institutions, both NGOs and the UN, which formulate and implement resolutions and guides of practice that affect gender issues in the context of international policy practices. The author investigates UN Security Council Resolution 1325, passed in 2000 to address gender issues in conflict areas, in order to examine the discursive construction of security policy that takes gender seriously. In doing so, she argues that language is not merely descriptive of social/political reality but rather constitutive of it. Moving from concept to discourse, and in turn to practice, the author analyses the ways in which the resolution's discursive construction had an enormous influence over the practicalities of its implementation, and how the resulting tensions and inconsistencies in its construction contributed to its failures. The book argues for a re-conceptualisation of gendered violence in conjunction with security, in order to avoid partial and highly problematic understandings of their practical relationship. Drawing together theoretical work on discourses of gender violence and international security, sexualised violence in war, gender and peace processes, and the domestic-international dichotomy with her own rigorous empirical investigation, the author develops a compelling discourse-theoretical analysis that promises to have far-reaching impact in both academic and policy environments.

International Security and Gender

International Security and Gender PDF

Author: Nicole Detraz

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2013-04-24

Total Pages: 342

ISBN-13: 0745663052

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What does it mean to be secure? In the global news, we hear stories daily about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, about domestic-level conflicts around the world, about the challenges of cybersecurity and social security. This broad list highlights the fact that security is an idea with multiple meanings, but do we all experience security issues in the same way? In this book, Nicole Detraz explores the broad terrain of security studies through a gender lens. Assumptions about masculinity and femininity play important roles in how we understand and react to security threats. By examining issues of militarization, peacekeeping, terrorism, human security, and environmental security, the book considers how the gender-security nexus pushes us to ask different questions and broaden our sphere of analysis. Including gender in our analysis of security challenges the primacy of some traditional security concepts and shifts the focus to be more inclusive. Without a full understanding of the vulnerabilities and threats associated with security, we may miss opportunities to address pressing global problems. Our society often expects men and women to play different roles, and this is no less true in the realm of security. This book demonstrates that security debates exhibit gendered understandings of key concepts, and whilst these gendered assumptions may benefit specific people, they are often detrimental to others, particularly in the key realm of policy-making.

Migration, Gender and Social Justice

Migration, Gender and Social Justice PDF

Author: Thanh-Dam Truong

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2013-09-06

Total Pages: 408

ISBN-13: 3642280129

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This book is the product of a collaborative effort involving partners from Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America who were funded by the International Development Research Centre Programme on Women and Migration (2006-2011). The International Institute of Social Studies at Erasmus University Rotterdam spearheaded a project intended to distill and refine the research findings, connecting them to broader literatures and interdisciplinary themes. The book examines commonalities and differences in the operation of various structures of power (gender, class, race/ethnicity, generation) and their interactions within the institutional domains of intra-national and especially inter-national migration that produce context-specific forms of social injustice. Additional contributions have been included so as to cover issues of legal liminality and how the social construction of not only femininity but also masculinity affects all migrants and all women. The resulting set of 19 detailed, interconnected case studies makes a valuable contribution to reorienting our perceptions and values in the discussions and decision-making concerning migration, and to raising awareness of key issues in migrants’ rights. All chapters were anonymously peer-reviewed. This book resulted from a series of projects funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada.

Human Security in South Asia

Human Security in South Asia PDF

Author: P. R. Chari

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 9788187358091

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The word security has a military connotation and refers to the activities involved in protecting or defending a country, in which the State has a central role. This book argues that the State provides as well as threatens security, and that by broadening the concept of security to include both military and non-military threats such as those related to ecological, social, economic and political causes, a system of checks and balances can be introduced to regulate the State.

Gender, Human Security and the United Nations

Gender, Human Security and the United Nations PDF

Author: Natalie Florea Hudson

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2009-09-22

Total Pages: 287

ISBN-13: 1135196923

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This book examines the relationship between women, gender and the international security agenda, exploring the meaning of security in terms of discourse and practice, as well as the larger goals and strategies of the global women's movement. Today, many complex global problems are being located within the security logic. From the environment to HIV/AIDS, state and non-state actors have made a practice out of securitizing issues that are not conventionally seen as such. As most prominently demonstrated by the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (2001), activists for women's rights have increasingly framed women's rights and gender inequality as security issues in an attempt to gain access to the international security agenda, particularly in the context of the United Nations. This book explores the nature and implications of the use of security language as a political framework for women, tracing and analyzing the organizational dynamics of women's activism in the United Nations system and how women have come to embrace and been impacted by the security framework, globally and locally. The book argues that, from a feminist and human security perspective, efforts to engender the security discourse have had both a broadening and limiting effect, highlighting reasons to be sceptical of securitization as an inherently beneficial strategy. Four cases studies are used to develop the core themes: (1) the campaign to implement UN Security Council Resolution 1325; (2) the strategies utilized by those advocating women's issues in the security arena compared to those advocating for children; (3) the organizational development of the UN Development Fund for Women and how it has come to securitize women; and (4) the activity of the UN Peacebuilding Commission and its challenges in gendering its security approach. The work will be of interest to students of critical security, gender studies, international organizations and international relations in general. Natalie Florea Hudson received her PhD in Political Science from the University of Connecticut and is an Assistant Professor at the University of Dayton. She specializes in gender and international relations, human rights, international security studies, and international law and organization.