Feature Call for Contributions
Feminist Africa 10: Gender and Militarism
Editors Amina Mama & Margo Okazawa-Rey
Militarisation and violent conflict pose the most significant obstacle to democratization and development in the Africa region. These are deeply gendered processes, which have devastating effects on all people. However they involve and impact on women and men very differently, as the recent horrors of sexual violence in the DRC, so vividly remind us. Militarism is a deeply gendered process, and it includes the cultural and ideological aspects of militarization at all the stages from pre-conflict mobilization and war-making, to post-conflict disarmament and demobilization. To neglect of the gender dynamics, and the deep reconfigurations of sexualities and social relations that pre-figure, intensify and change during these deeply masculinising processes, and their persistence in post-conflict situations, is to imperil the possibility of building genuine peace and security in the region.
Historically, colonial rule was military rule, and many of Africa’s nations were born out of periods of armed struggle, while others have seen periods of civil conflict and military rule since political independence. While the number of conflicts and military dictatorships has declined in recent years, the current escalation of global militarism thus poses particular challenges to the fragile democratization that has so far taken place, and threatens to set back advances in gender transformation that have occurred in post-liberation and post-conflict societies.
Despite African women’s extensive involvement in these processes, and in peace-building in particular, there is little concerted research that brings a feminist perspective to bear on the medium and long term consequences of militarism in its broader sense of including long term social and cultural changes that accompany conflicts and wars. This issue of Feminist Africa will use feminist theory to reflect critically on the diverse existing scenarios that can be grouped under the broad rubric of militarism on the continent, with a view of developing deeper transnational analyses. Central to this issue will be an engagement with women’s involvement in and resistance to militarism and militarisation in Africa, with the aim of informing and strengthening women’s movement activism.
Contributions are invited for all and any aspect of this issue. Please email the editors at agi-feministafrica@uct.ac.za to indicate your interest and state briefly what you are interested in submitting (feature article, standpoint, profile of activism, or book reviews). All submissions need to be in by end of March 2008.