Description
Space making, shaping and taking are at the heart of the political struggles and contention in societies emerging from armed conflict. One of central aims of peace processes is rendering political decision-making more inclusive. The purpose is to open officialised spaces for participation with a view to increasing diversity of views and interests. Such discourses are particularly prevalent in the context of gender equality and efforts to increase women’s participation. Such efforts seek to ‘position’ women and communities in the emerging societal landscape following an armed conflict and ‘reposition’ them vis-à-vis the pre-existing structures of governance. Focusing on spatial logics, this analysis explores such positionings of gender in peace architectures. In examining the peace process in the Mindanao region in the Southern Philippines, where women’s descriptive and substantive representation have been high, the analysis seeks to ascertain the extent to which political and policy spaces have opened up to women and other constituencies traditionally marginalised in the region’s governance? In what ways are spaces occupied and navigated by women and gender activists? Where in the peace architecture, consisting of officialised and non-officialised spaces, have women and the gender agenda gained inclusion?
