Search results

Introduction: Women, peace and security in Myanmar : the map and the terrain / Åshild Kolås -- UNSCR 1325 in Myanmar : women's rights, peace and security in times of transition / Camilla Buzzi -- Women in the Myanmar peace process : the thirty percent target / Bishnu Raj Upreti, Drishti Upreti and Debendra Prasad Adhikari -- Women-to-women diplomacy and the Women's League Of Burma / Magda Lorena Cardenas -- No peace in a ceasefire : women's agency in the Kachin conflict / Marte Nilsen -- Women's participation in peacebuilding : views from Mon rural communities / Myint Myint Mon -- Women survivor's experiences of war and perspectives on peace in Myanmar / S. Hkawng Naw -- Women in Myanmar's ethnic armed organizations : numbers and narratives / Åshild Kolås and Leitanthem Umakanta Meitei -- Women's "marginal voices" : diverse perspectives on peace and security in Myanmar / Elena Di Padova.

"This book sheds new light on the important but diverse roles of women in the civil war in Nepal (1996-2006), and the post-conflict reconstruction period (2006-2016). Engaging critically with the women, peace and security literature, Women, Peace and Security in Nepal questions the potential of peace processes to become a window of opportunity for women's empowerment, while insisting on the vital importance of a gender perspective in the study of conflict, security and peace. After the signing of the 2006 Comprehensive Peace Accord, Nepal experienced a huge leap in women's political representation in the subsequent Constituent Assembly, often portrayed as a landmark victory for women's empowerment in the context of South Asia. Nepali women's mobilization played a key role in this success story, though similar mobilization has failed to produce the same outcomes elsewhere in South Asia. How does Nepal differ from the other cases? Presenting studies of war-time and post-conflict Nepal through a gender lens, this book critically assesses the argument that war and peacebuilding can add momentum to the transformation of gender roles. Contributing new knowledge on women's disempowerment and empowerment in conflict and peacebuilding, the book also offers insights for contemporary debate on gender and political change in conflict-affected societies. This book will be of great interest to students of peace and conflict studies, gender security, South Asia and international relations in general, as well as policy-makers and NGOs."--Provided by publisher.

This article investigates the "othering" of Muslims in two Northeast Indian states: Assam and Tripura, in a region known for its ethnic, linguistic and cultural diversity, and long history of militancy and civil unrest. Northeast Indian politics thrives on disagreement between "Us" and "Them" and tensions over illegal migration, drawing on overlapping or intersecting frames of "othering." This study asks why and how the political "othering" of Muslims persists, and why the religious frame, or the Hindu–Muslim divide, is more salient in some parts of the region than in others. Drawing on fieldwork on the Indian side of the Indo-Bangladesh border in Tripura and southern Assam, historical records and contemporary print media archives, this study compares the role of Hindu–Muslim contention in the politics of the two neighboring states and finds reproduction of the Hindu–Muslim divide in Assam and resistance to Muslim "othering" in Tripura. The theoretical contribution of this article is to confront the concept of "othering" with colonial and post-colonial frameworks of representation to understand how contemporary non-Western "worlds of difference" capitalize on, reproduce and resist vestiges of colonial representations.

The standard frame of security studies is to view Northeast India as a site of multiple "ethnic conflicts." In trying to unravel these conflicts, the focus has remained on the fault lines between the state and its alleged contenders, the region's multiple nonstate actors. This special issue tries to look at the conflict scenario of Northeast India through a different set of lenses, in an effort to draw the focus away from the usual conflict histories, to direct attention toward the ideas that underpin the construction of Northeast India as a frontier zone and its people as "others," both internally divided and divided from the Indian mainstream. The "tribal" movements of Northeast India, and the patterns of conflict associated with them, are well researched. What this issue explores is how and why tribal political projects are created and pursued, and how to understand these projects, whether as strategies of resistance and survival, identity politics, or rival projects of extraction and exploitation. What do we find when we look into the enigmatic frontier as a "zone of anomie," a "sensitive space," or a parapolitical scene that defies the taken-for-granted dichotomies between the state and nonstate?

ABSTRACTThis article examines discourses about grassland degradation in China as expressed by herders, government officials and researchers, presenting findings from fieldwork in Xilinguole League, Inner Mongolia. Recognizing degradation discourse and grassland restoration policies as key sites of political contestation, this study does not try to arrive at the scientific facts about degradation, but rather seeks to illuminate the mechanisms by which grasslands are identified as degraded, and the implementation of policies to restore and protect the grasslands. A key finding is that policy outcomes are widely divergent and difficult to predict. This is not merely due to differences among actors in terms of their interests, access to resources, power, values or knowledge, but as much a result of contradictions and tensions inherent in key policy goals, opening up spaces for local resistance as well as selective policy implementation. This highlights the open‐ended and contested nature of China's environmental state project.

Ceasefires are often seen as a simple measure to end violence and allow more substantive negotiations to begin. Contemporary conflict resolution models thus posit the ceasefire as a basic step in the peacebuilding trajectory. Offering an in-depth analysis of Naga militancy in Northeast India, this article argues that ceasefires should rather be understood as a part of the dynamics of conflict. Northeast India is a site of protracted conflict involving multiple contestants, where Naga militant organizations play a key role. A string of ceasefires since 1997 between the Indian government and the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (NSCN) has contained fighting between security forces and militants, while violence has continued unabated between NSCN factions and among an array of other armed groups in the area claimed as 'Nagalim', with serious consequences for local communities. This study suggests that ceasefires may impact on conflict dynamics in at least three ways, all interrelated: (1) by affecting the internal cohesion of belligerent groups, (2) by affecting the operational space of armed groups, and (3) by affecting the relations between multiple stakeholders and parties to a conflict, including but not limited to the challenger(s) and the state. The study concludes that the terms of ceasefire agreements, the strategic use of ceasefires by conflict actors, and the opportunities created by a lack of effective monitoring of ceasefire ground rules has facilitated the operations of militants vying for territory, revenues from illegal 'taxation' and political stakes. Ceasefires have also paved the way for an escalation of factional and intergroup fighting and violent politics in Northeast India, by empowering signatory groups versus contenders as well as nonviolent actors.