From combatants and war supporters to peacemakers? Women’s participation in political violence and political transitions (Gendered Transitions)

After many years of international activism to advance the Women, Peace and Security agenda, women are still marginalized in peace negotiations and peace processes. But women can play key roles as both war supporters and peace spoilers, and their exclusion risks undermining efforts to build sustainable peace in vulnerable societies.

The project uses qualitative feminist and ethnographic methods, including document analysis, focus groups, interviews, fieldwork observations, and workshops, to study changes in gender norms and in women’s roles and political participation across three levels of analysis in Mali and Colombia: 1) women’s lived experiences (micro) 2) the non-state armed groups (meso) and 3) the societal level (macro).

The project is carried out by the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), Swedish Defence University (Sweden), Institut des Sciences Humaines (Mali), and Escuela Superior de Administración Pública (Colombia), and is based on close collaboration between and supports research by four female scholars based in different countries in the global north and -south.

The project is funded by the Research Council of Norway under the Researcher Project for Early Career Scientists (Democracy and Global Development) funding scheme.