The Conceptualization problem in research and responses to sexual and gender-based violence in forced migration

ABSTRACT

The conceptualization of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) has developed rapidly over recent decades and the understanding of SGBV in the context of forced migration continues to evolve. Based on a scoping review of scholarly work and reports by non-governmental organizations and international organizations between 1993 and 2018, this study identifies limitations to the current conceptualization of SGBV, and proposes a re-conceptualization. The paper argues that the existing literature overemphasizes the contexts of war zones and conflict and excludes post-flight settings, and focuses mainly on the victimization of women, excluding other at-risk groups. The tendency to focus on conflict zones and to underline the victim status of women constrains the usefulness of the conceptualization for informing research as well as protection and response. This review considers the multifaceted causes and consequences of gendered vulnerabilities and insecurities that are exposed in forced migration processes in order to make sense of SGBV as a gendered harm. Through a constructivist and de-essentialising theoretical lens, the study proposes to conceptualize SGBV in terms of continuities in forced migration occuring over time in interwoven territories and a variety of contexts from countries of origin to settlement.

KEYWORDS:

• SGBV
• forced migration
• refugees

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions, and Dr. Senem Yıldırım for her comments in an earlier version of this paper. We also would like to thank Sian Thomas for her editorial support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Wellcome Trust, Volkswagen Stiftung and Riksbankens Jubileumsfond [Sexual and gender based violence in the refugee cr].

Notes on contributors

Saime Ozcurumez

Dr Saime Ozcurumez (Ph.D., McGill) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at Bilkent University. She was a Visiting Scholar at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies and Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard University (2015–2016) during her sabbatical, where she conducted research on the resilience of health care systems in Turkey in response to the mass influx of refugees from Syria. She has been part of many international and national collaborative research projects on cultural diversity and health care systems; livelihood conditions of refugees, social cohesion and international protection and psychosocial support services for refugee populations. She is the founding Director of Human Mobility Processes and Interactions Research Lab at the Faculty of Economic, Administrative and Social Sciences at Bilkent University.

Selin Akyuz

Dr Selin Akyuz obtained her Bachelor’s degree from the Department of Political Science at Bilkent University and her Master’s degree from the Department of Political Science at Hacettepe University. She completed her doctoral studies in 2012 in the Department of Political Science at Bilkent University. During 2014–2015 academic year, she conducted her post-doctoral research on gendered perceptions of migration at the University of Oxford, International Gender Studies Centre at Lady Margaret Hall. Dr. Akyüz is involved in national and international research projects on gender, empowerment, human rights and migration. Her major research interests are critical studies on men and masculinities, gender studies and migration.

Hannah Bradby

Hannah Bradby has been a Professor in the Sociology Department, Uppsala University, Sweden since 2013, having previously held a senior lectureship at the University of Warwick, UK. Her research interrogates the links between identity, structure and health with particular reference to racism, ethnicity and religion. Hannah blogs for ‘The Cost of Living’ and is Speciality Chief Editor for Medical Sociology at the open access Sociology Frontiers journal. Together with Professor Sandra Torres, Hannah leads the Research Group on Welfare and Lifecourse, established in 2012 at Uppsala University’s Sociology Department, bringing together over twenty researchers of healthcare and welfare.