Why Women’s Contribution to Peacebuilding Matters

Review by Elisabeth Porter

University of South Australia

Women Building Peace: What They Do, Why it Matters. By Sanam Naraghi Anderlini. Boulder,CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2007. 257 pp., cloth (ISBN-13: 978-1-58826-536-4), paper(ISBN-13: 978-1-58826-512-8).

While typically women remain absent or marginalized from formal peace pro-cesses, they are conspicuously active in informal, grassroots peacebuilding activi-ties. Invisibility and activity, victimhood and agency run parallel. The 1995 UNFourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing mobilized global networksof women working to further peace and security. The momentum led to the2000 UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on ‘‘Women, Peace, and Security.’’The resolution is historic in recognizing women’s rights to protection from vio-lence and participation in all forms of decision-making to prevent, manage, andresolve conflict.

There are many ways to write about women’s peace initiatives. One way isto combine scholarship on emerging debates on human security with feministinternational relations (IR) theory. This book does not follow this pattern. Itsbibliography includes mainly NGO reports, UN reports, and Internet sources,combined with some familiar academic books. However, what might be lackingin overall conceptual framework is amply compensated by the richness ofexperiences the author draws on. Sanam Naraghi Anderlini is uniquely quali-fied to write about women, peace, and security. She has wide fieldwork experi-ence in conflict zones and has been active in high-level international policy-making institutions in London, Washington, New York, Brussels, and else-where. This is an excellent book. I was curious, wondering how it compareswith Peacebuilding, Women in International Perspective (Porter 2007). There areoverlaps in content, theme, and emphases, but Anderlini’s book is rich withfirst-hand stories of women striving to engage in formal processes whilst Peace-building highlights examples of women in informal peacebuilding in the con-text of orthodox IR literature and peace studies. Both books stress thesignificance of recognizing women’s cross-regional peacebuilding initiatives inpost-Cold War civil conflict.

Anderlini extrapolates from women’s stories their desire for holistic notions ofpeace that include freedom from violence defined in terms of human securityneeds. This understanding is rooted in a ‘‘commitment to social justice, fairness,and equality for all’’ (p. 9), although what is meant conceptually and practicallyby these ideals is not spelled out. This field of feminist peace studies and femi-nist IR is highly interdisciplinary. Although Anderlini stresses women’s activism,voices, lives, and needs rather than a specifically feminist orientation, her empha-sis is explicitly feminist in advocating for women’s rights. She acknowledges thedegree to which the field is influencing debates on human security, conflicttransformation, humanitarian accountability, and rights, broadening its reader-ship appeal.

Women Building Peace is based around crucial questions. What do women do inpeace processes? Why are women excluded from formal peace processes? Where

� 2008 International Studies Association

International Studies Review (2008) 10, 632–634

they are present, what differences do they make? Why does it matter if womenare involved in peacebuilding? What impact do women have? The answers tothese questions pose challenges given that the UN is dependent on memberstates adopting conventions on gender equality. Anderlini maintains that whilescholarly and pragmatic attention is paid to sources of conflict, stories aboutactors who ease conflict go untold. For example, noting gendered indicators ofrepression can signal warnings of impending violence (Schmeidl and Piza-Lopez2002). Wherever war impacts on family life, women as traditional nurturers arepropelled into activism in order to secure food, shelter, medical care, and educa-tion. Such activism spurs coalitions. Despite ethnic, religious, and cultural differ-ences, women come together on common agendas, diffusing potential areas ofadversarial aggression. Similarly, women in South Africa, Rwanda, Cambodia,Somalia, and Iraq formed cross-party caucuses around common interests.

While excuses are given for women’s absence from formal peace talks,women’s organizations have found creative ways to be heard. Anderlini givesexamples of how in peace talks in Sudan, Northern Ireland, the Balkans, andthe Philippines, holistic visions of peace were ‘‘predicated on principles of socialjustice, equality, rights and responsibilities’’ and universal needs of ‘‘health, edu-cation, security, freedom of movement, and legal and political rights’’ (p. 75).Unfortunately, what constitutes these principles is not made explicit. The experi-ential ramifications of a blurred distinction between public and private securityis in expanding the peace agenda. In listening to other’s views and being empa-thetic toward victims, women’s contributions to peace processes are ‘‘not onlymore humane but more healing’’ (p. 83). This is the important answer to theWhat They Do, Why It Matters part of the title. Michelle Bachelet’s victory in Chile,Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf’s position as the first woman head of state in Africa, andwomen making up 49% of elected representatives in Rwanda are examples ofpositive global progress, but do not herald a new era of gender equality.

A critical component in peace negotiations revolves around disarmament,demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) programs. Sensitivity is needed, giventhat women fighters in Sri Lanka, Nepal, and the DRC view their weapons as asource of empowerment and protection. In places like Sri Lanka and NorthernIreland, preoccupation with disarmament slowed progress with rehabilitation.Child combatants, men, and women need carefully coordinated DDR. Also, goodgovernance fosters sound post-conflict reconstruction. During this period,Roland Paris (2004) cautions the push toward democracy and market liberaliza-tion, advocating instead the need to strengthen institutions and cultivate avibrant civil society prior to elections and open markets. The need for inclusiveparticipation of voices is part of the reconstructive period given that existingentrenched views are aired alongside suppressed or innovative positions (Meint-jes, Pillay, and Turshen 2001).

The inclusion of women is a significant indicator of the degree of change, par-ticularly given that many conflict-affected countries are deeply patriarchal. Thus‘‘increases in tolerance, coexistence, and plurality are reflected in the treatmentof women’’ (p. 126) in terms of their access to positions and their legal, social,economic, and political standing. In Cambodia, South Africa, and Rwanda, inclu-sivity was a principle enshrined within constitutions. To further gender equality,sustained financial, technical, practical, and mentoring support is required.

The question asked by a Congolese activist, Claudine Tayaye Bibi in 2003,‘‘What kind of peace do we have if the men who raped and killed women nowsit in the government’’? (p. 153), lies at the heart of transitional justice. Judicialprocesses such as the International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslaviaand Rwanda, the Sierra Leone Special Court, and the Iraq Special Tribunal focuson retributive justice for the perpetrators of wrongdoing. Truth and Reconcilia-tion Commissions (TRC) create spaces for citizens to tell their stories and

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perpetrators to admit to past acts. In places like Peru, Guatemala, Sierra Leone,Bosnia, Rwanda, and the DRC where sex-based crimes were pervasive, prosecut-ing all perpetrators is impossible given the reluctance of victims to come forth.The South African TRC created Special Hearings on women to encouragewomen to speak out (Gobodo-Madikezela 2005). The book demonstrates howjustice differs for different victims and survivors. The role of truth, memory, apol-ogy, and forgiveness are part of the long journey toward reconciliation, andwhile referred to, are not explicated in-depth.

Anderlini’s final chapter recognizes significant progress initiated through 1325and documents ‘‘the triple-A syndrome of apathy, ad hoc practice, and amnesia’’(p. 193). First, she demonstrates convincingly how addressing women’s protec-tion and insisting on their participation in decision-making is still viewed as a dis-cretionary extra, to be slotted in if possible. Second, despite examples of goodpractice, there is no systematic integration of innovation into mainstream activi-ties so there are ‘‘always pilots, never programs’’ (p. 215), with notable excep-tions, as in the UN Transitional Authority in East Timor. Lack of fundingperpetuates ad hoc practices. Third, when good practices are not documentedand transferred, ‘‘pervasive institutional amnesia’’ (p. 218) on its importanceprevails.

Anderlini makes a strong plea for women to be included in every stage ofpeace processes so that gendered perspectives become an integral part of everyfacet of peace and security work. This book is extremely well-written and is veryaccessible to students and practitioners as well as to scholars in conflict resolu-tion, security studies, peace studies, and women’s studies. Its examples are per-suasive and often moving. This book deserves to be well-read and its messagesheeded.

References

Gobodo-Madikezela, Pumla. (2005) Women’s Contribution to South Africa’s Truth and ReconciliationCommission. New York: Hunt Alternatives Fund, New York.

Meintjes, Sheila, Anu Pillay, and Meredeth Turshen, eds. (2001) The Aftermath. Women in Post-Conflict Transformation. London: Zed Books.

Paris, Roland. (2004) At War’s End: Building Peace After Civil Conflict. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-sity Press.

Porter, Elisabeth. (2007) Peacebuilding. Women in International Perspective. London and New York:Routledge.

Schmeidl, Susanne, and Eugenia Piza-Lopez. (2002) Gender and Conflict Early Warning: A Frameworkfor Action. London and Bern: International Alert and Women Waging Peace ⁄ Swiss Peace Foun-dation.

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