Search results

AbstractMy current interest in silence, gender, and power owes much to discussions with Marysia Zalewski over the years. Much of my work has focused on masculinity, gender relations, and gender hierarchies with a focus on security and development in conflict zones. More recently, I have begun to explore silence not as a sign of disempowerment, but as a powerful force that can be used in many ways. This approach enables a more multi-levelled understanding of silence and voice and their many interactions. It has much to tell the Global North, where we prize voice and often underestimate the power of silence.

Global and local contestations are not only gendered, they also raise important questions about agency and its practice and location in the twenty-first century. Silence and voice are being increasingly debated as sites of agency within feminist research on conflict and insecurity. Drawing on a wide range of feminist approaches, this volume examines the various ways that silence and voice have been contested in feminist research, and their impact on how agency is understood and performed, particularly in situations of conflict and insecurity. The collection makes an important and timely contribution to interdisciplinary feminist theorizing of silence, voice and agency in global politics. Interrogating the intellectual landscape of existing debates about agency, silence and voice in an increasingly unequal and conflict-ridden world, the contributors to this volume challenge the dominant narratives of agency based on voice or speech alone as a necessary precondition for understanding or negotiating agency or empowerment. Many of the authors have engaged in field research in both the Global South and North and bring in-depth and diverse gendered case studies to their analysis, focusing on the increasing importance of examining silence as well as voice for understanding gender and agency in an increasingly embattled and complicated world. This book will contribute to and deepen existing discussions of agency, silence and voice in development, culture and gender studies, political economy, postcolonial and de-colonial scholarship as well as in the field of International Relations.

AbstractGender mainstreaming, with its promise of gender transformation, equality and empowerment, has become a central pillar of development discourse, policy and practice. Yet, the implementation of these promises has largely been disappointing. Proposed 'solutions' have brought little new to the table. This article suggests that we need to rethink the link between policy and implementation, recognising that both are political processes and that while policies set agendas, both policies and their implementation are deeply influenced by societal factors. Drawing on critical development analysis and feminist writings, the article explores the transformative potential of gender mainstreaming in international development organisations in an increasingly complex, unequal and gendered world. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Richey and Ponte (2011) explore the dark side of corporate social responsibility as practiced by the RED campaign. The campaign was launched in the 1990s to celebrate the possibility of doing good and helping impoverished, diseased Others in the South, while consuming products produced by its members including Starbucks, American Express, Emporio Armani, Converse, Gap, Apple, and Motorola. Buttressed by the power of celebrities such as Bono, Oprah, and Angelina Jolie, as well as development experts/celebrities such as Paul Farmer and Jeffrey Sachs, the RED campaign has provided Northern consumers with a rationale for feeling good while purchasing expensive lattes, sneakers, clothing, and computers. As the (RED) Manifesto claims, if you buy RED products, you will also support the efforts of "good, socially conscious companies" to save helpless, diseased Africans from dying of AIDS. The RED campaign thus not only provides a rationale for conscientious shopping, it also dramatizes the gap between the "rich" North and the impoverished, diseased bodies of the global South, and reinforces the neoliberal claim that unfettered but responsible capitalism is the key to solving the problems of the poverty-stricken global South. Adapted from the source document.