The Graduate Institute’s Programme on Gender and Global Change (PGGC) has recently been awarded CHF 1.5 million jointly by the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Swiss Development Cooperation programme on Research for Development (r4d) to carry out a new project entitled “The Gender Dimensions of Social Conflicts, Armed Violence and Peacebuilding”.

The project leader Jana Krause talks about the project in an interview.

What is the overarching goal of this project?

We aim to understand how gender relations and armed violence relate to each other in various social conflicts, such as vigilante, communal or insurgent violence, in order to propose policy recommendations on gender-sensitive peacebuilding efforts.

With the adoption of Security Council Resolution 1325 more than a decade ago, the international policy community has embraced the idea that the goal of security requires a problematization of gender. In practice, the objectives of conflict prevention and of women’s participation in peace processes, both envisaged in the resolution, have received little attention in comparison to the pressing goal of addressing gender-based violence in war. This limited focus may in part derive from a dearth of empirical evidence that convincingly connects gendered agency to processes of violence and resistance to violence because this scientific field of inquiry remains split between feminist and conflict-related research.

We consider this a missed opportunity since there is overwhelming evidence that gender matters significantly in human practices of violence. By exploring the significance of such evidence for processes of conflict (de)escalation, we hope to provide powerful tools that make an impact and improve local-level capacities for managing conflicts non-violently.

Where will the project be carried out and what will be its main activities?

Our comparative field research-based approach focuses on several conflict regions within Indonesia and Nigeria. Both countries are very populous and have multi-ethnic regional powers that have experienced major levels of armed violence since the transitions from military authoritarian to civilian regimes in 1998/1999.

We investigate gender relations, dynamics of violence and peacebuilding efforts in the post-conflict regions of Aceh (Indonesia) and the Niger Delta (Nigeria); in areas affected by communal violence in Maluku (Indonesia) and Plateau State (Nigeria); and regions with high levels of vigilante violence such as East Java (Indonesia) and Enugu State (Nigeria). We will also facilitate dialogue and mutual learning between scholars, civil society activists and peacebuilding practitioners in West Africa and South-east Asia to exchange knowledge and strengthen ties between actors from different fields.

Why are the Institute and the PGGC well suited to carry out this research?

The Graduate Institute is uniquely situated within international Geneva and engages with a range of experts in the gender and peacebuilding field. The department of International Relations/Political Science is recognized for its expertise and research training in political violence and conflict research.

The PGGC is a hub in international gender studies connecting scholars and activists and has substantial experience in partnering with researchers and policy-makers from the North and South. The project also benefits from an outreach and communication partnership primarily with the Small Arms Survey and the Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development, but also with institutions such as the Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding (CCDP) at the institute and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.

Jana Krause is Research Associate at the Programme on Gender and Global Change and Post-doctoral Research Fellow with the Conflict, Security and Development Research Group (CSDRG) at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. She holds a PhD from the Graduate Institute. Her research focuses on political violence, peacebuilding and resilience in Indonesia and Nigeria

The project Gender Dimensions of Social Conflicts, Armed Violence and Peacebuilding is co-directed by Institute Deputy-Director and Director of Research, Professor Elisabeth Prügl.