DIIS seminar: Kønsroller, stater og konflikter

TID Mandag d. 18. november kl. 10-12

STED: Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), Main Auditorium, Østbanegade 117, ground floor, 2100 København Ø.

Gender, States and Conflict

TID Mandag d. 18. november kl. 10-12

STED: Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), Main Auditorium, Østbanegade 117, ground floor, 2100 København Ø.

Gender, States and Conflict

In the 20th century there have been an estimated 200 million deaths caused by war. As one commentator noted, “much has been written about the causes of war; little has been learned about the subject”. Why, given the terrible consequences of war, do states and other actors continue to initiate wars?

This seminar will focus on the role of gender as a missing piece of the “war puzzle”. How is gender a primary analytical category that contributes to a specifically feminist approach to war studies?

On the basis of her new book Gendering Global Conflict: Toward a Feminist Theory of War (Columbia University Press, 2013), Laura Sjoberg will use gendered lenses to discuss the causes of war in relations between states (the dyadic level).

She will examine how gender is a key feature of the relationships between states, and a key dyadic-level factor in the making of conflicts and the fighting of wars. Accounts of war which focus on particular properties of states, such as democracy or capitalism, pay insufficient attention to relations between states.

This seminar will focus on interactions between states, highlighting the ways in which these interactions are both gendered and observed in gendered ways.

Developing a feminist contribution to war studies, the seminar will introduce the concept of “relations international” to the field of international relations, to highlight how a gendered lens in the study of the dyadic-level causes of war is both empirically advantageous and normatively preferable.

Speakers

Laura Sjoberg is Associate Professor of Political Science with an affiliation with the Center for Women’s Studies and Gender Research at the University of Florida. She holds a BA from the University of Chicago, a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California, School of International Relations, and a J.D. from Boston College Law School.

Sjoberg’s research is located at the intersection of gender and international security, where she asks both theoretical and empirical questions about gender, conflict and security. Her theoretical research focuses on the ways that gender influences and constitutes war and conflict.

Her most recent work in that area is a book called Gendering Global Conflict: Toward a Feminist Theory of War (Columbia University Press, 2013). Her empirical research focuses on gender tropes in political violence, most frequently women’s violence. Her most recent work in that area is a book on the signification and jurisprudence surrounding women perpetrators of genocidal rape, Rape among Women (New York University Press, forthcoming).

Sjoberg has been the author or editor of eight books and her work has been published in more than two dozen journals in international relations, political science, and gender studies. She currently serves as president of the Sexuality and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association, as home base editor of the International Feminist Journal of Politics, and as associate editor of the International Studies Review.

Annika Bergman Rosamond is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Political Science, University of Lund. Before she arrived in Lund she was a Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies. She has also held lectureships at the Universities of Edinburgh and Leicester.

Her recent publications include the co-edited volume (with Mark Phythian) War, Ethics and Justice: New Perspectives on a Post 9/11 World (Routledge, 2012); Perspectives on Security in the Arctic Areas (DIIS, 2011); “Protection beyond Borders: Gender Cosmopolitanism and Co-constitutive Obligation’s”, (Global Society, 2013, Vol. 27 No. 3); and “Dialogic Peacekeeping in Afghanistan: Danish and Swedish pursuits of UNSCR 1325”, as part of special issue to be published in Conflict, Security and Development, July 2014 (Björkdahl & Græger, editors).

The seminar will be held in English.

Participation is free of charge, but registration is required. Please use the online registration form no later than Friday, 15 November 2013 at 12.00 noon.

Registrate and read more at: http://en.diis.dk/home/seminars/2013/gender,+states+and+conflict

Please await confirmation by e-mail from DIIS for participation.