Gendering Peace in Violent Peripheries: Marginality, Masculinity, and Feminist Agency

This book explores how gendered power operates in multi-ethnic, conflict-prone geopolitical peripheries worldwide, focusing on Assam (and Northeast India). It highlights the redefinition of masculinity in militarization, hyper-masculinization, and gendered violence, and analyzes obstacles to achieving positive, organic peace based on cooperation and mutual healing. It also identifies tools used to perpetuate violence and encourages resistance based on reflexivity and strategic radicalism.

Format: Hardback
Length: 166 pages
Publication date: 12 August 2022
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

This book presents Assam (and Northeast India) as a unique setting for examining the dynamics of gendered power in multiethnic, conflict-prone geopolitical peripheries worldwide. In the ever-shifting and interconnected margins of these societies, power and agency are constantly negotiated and in flux. The concept of masculinity is reshaped in a complex environment characterized by militarization, hypermasculinization, and gendered violence. These interconnections shape the experiences of vulnerable marginalized constituencies, including women and migrants, influencing their victimhood and agency. By centering the marginalized in its inquiry, the book delves into the barriers to achieving positive, organic peace based on cooperation and mutual healing. It identifies the tools used to perpetuate an endless cycle of violence that makes conflict a way of life, providing insights into resistance against these forces from within the margins. Such resistance necessitates a reflexive and strategic approach, combining critical interrogation of the interconnectedness between gendered pasts, feminist futures, local changes, global contexts, and the interplay between small, incremental shifts and significant transformations impacting entire societies, nations, and global orders.

This book holds significant appeal to students specializing in ethnic conflict, conflict resolution, feminist peace, and Asian/South Asian politics. Its insights into the complexities of gendered power dynamics in diverse geopolitical contexts offer valuable perspectives and methodologies for understanding and addressing the challenges of peacebuilding in these regions. By exploring the intersections of gender, ethnicity, and conflict, this book contributes to the growing body of literature on feminist peace studies and provides valuable insights into the complex dynamics of conflict resolution and post-conflict reconstruction.

Weight: 490g
Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781032211077