Description
This panel explores the intersections of gender, resistance, and governance in post-conflict societies across the Global South, foregrounding women’s multifaceted roles as peacebuilders, negotiators, and agents of transformation. While international frameworks such as UNSCR 1325 have institutionalised the “Women, Peace and Security” (WPS) agenda, women’s lived experiences within transitional contexts extend beyond these global normative frameworks. This panel examines how women’s participation both aligns with and challenges dominant models of peace governance, revealing tensions between global normative frameworks and local agency.
Drawing on case studies from conflict-affected societies, the panel’s papers interrogate how women navigate structures of exclusion and transform post-conflict governance landscapes. Topics include grassroots peace activism, women’s groups as brokers of gender politics, the role of international institutions during conflict, and the reconfiguration of gender norms in post-war governance. In discussing these topics, the panel's papers apply diverse theoretical frameworks and methodological tools. Collectively, these papers illuminate how women resist marginalisation while redefining the meaning of justice, peace, security and authority in post-conflict societies.
The panel contributes to critical feminist and postcolonial debates in International Relations by centring the voices and strategies of women who challenge hegemonic understandings of peace and governance. It also engages with the peace and conflict literature by asking questions about how gendered resistance reshapes political orders and state-building processes in the aftermath of conflict. This panel will be of interest to scholars of gender, peace and conflict studies, critical security studies, and global governance.
