A Feminist Approach to Hybridity: Understanding Local and International Interactions in Producing Post-Conflict Gender Security

Abstract

Recently, the concept of hybridity has become popular within critical peacebuilding scholarship to explain the interplay of power between local and international actors in post-conflict contexts. However, a nuanced gender lens has often been missing from these analyses. This article develops a feminist critique and approach to hybridity in order to achieve a deeper sense of the effects that experiences and perspectives of international and local actors have upon peacebuilding initiatives. It begins to develop a feminist approach to hybridity via a case study of a gender security initiative concerned with challenging the prevalence of small arms and light weapons (SALW) abuse in domestic violence in Serbia. The article concludes by highlighting how this feminist perspective allows a richer understanding of the power relations shaping local and international interactions.

Keywords:

• feminism
• hybridity
• gender security
• local
• international

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Roger Mac Ginty and Laura Shepherd for their engagement and comments on an earlier draft of this article, and two anonymous reviewers for their careful reading and insightful suggestions. Hvala vam puno to all those who participated in the research interviews, and especially to Gordana, Aleksander and Adam for their research assistance.

Notes on Contributor

Laura McLeod is a lecturer in International Politics at the University of Manchester. She is currently researching the different types of gender knowledge which are invoked in peacebuilding contexts. She has also researched gender security and feminist organizing in post-conflict contexts, and her book, Gender Politics and Security Discourse: Personal-Political Imaginations and Feminism in ‘Post-Conflict’ Serbia is forthcoming. ([email protected])

Notes

1 I thank Laura Shepherd for this point.

2 Interview, SALW Awareness Officer (SEESAC/UNDP), Belgrade, 11 April 2008.

3 The report covers the Western Balkans: Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania and FYR Macedonia. The lead researcher who wrote the report is based in Serbia, and the SEESAC offices are based in Belgrade, I focused on processes of developing and implementing the recommendations made in relation to Serbia.

4 Interview, SALW Awareness Officer (SEESAC/UNDP), Belgrade, 11 April 2008.

5 Interview, SALW Awareness Officer (SEESAC/UNDP), Belgrade, 11 April 2008.

6 The vast majority with activists of feminist and women's organizations.

7 Interview, Mirjana Dokmanovic, Victimology Society Serbia, Subotica, 21 May 2008.

8 This was reported in several interviews with me throughout 2008. Data from SOS Hotline recorded in the early 1990s suggest that approximately 40 per cent of telephone calls made to the domestic violence helpline made reference to the threat of pistols, bombs and similar weapons (see Mladjenovic and Matijaševic 1996, 119–122).

9 Interview, Lepa Mladjenovic, Coordinator of Autonomous Women's Centre, Belgrade, 12 June 2009.

10 Interview, SALW Awareness Officer (SEESAC/UNDP), Belgrade, 11 April 2008.

11 Interview, SALW Awareness Officer (SEESAC/UNDP), Belgrade, 11 April 2008.

12 Since 2008, SEESAC has expanded its range of gender activities. For instance, it now coordinates a Women's Police Network to provide support and training to female police officers across SEE.

13 Interview, SALW Awareness Officer (SEESAC/UNDP), Belgrade, 11 April 2008.

14 Interview, Mirjana Dokmanovic, Victimology Society Serbia, Subotica, 21 May 2008.

15 Interview, SALW Awareness Officer (SEESAC/UNDP), Belgrade, 11 April 2008.

16 Interview, SALW Awareness Officer (SEESAC/UNDP), Belgrade, 11 April 2008.

17 Interview, SALW Awareness Officer (SEESAC/UNDP), Belgrade, 11 April 2008.

18 Vesna Nikolic-Ristanovic, Director, Victimology Society Serbia, Belgrade, 10 July 2008

19 Interview, Slavoljupka Parlovic, Legal Coordinator, Autonomous Women's Centre, Belgrade, 8 July 2008.

Additional information

Funding

The research for this article was made possible by an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Postgraduate Studentship Award [PTA-031-2005-00220] held between October 2005 and April 2010.