Hybrid Clubs: A Feminist Approach to Peacebuilding in the Democratic Republic of Congo

ABSTRACT

Critical approaches to peacebuilding have achieved a local turn wherein alienated indigenous experiences are the cornerstone of emancipatory practices – yet this emancipation of the ‘different’ risks perpetuating the discrimination and normalization of the challenged liberal peace. Using the case study of a feminist campaign to elect more women in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), this article’s feminist approach to critical peacebuilding utilizes storytelling to develop a conceptual grid that reveals the complexities of the politics of difference, and proposes the concept of the ‘hybrid club’ as a cluster of local and international actors coalescing to develop peacebuilding initiatives.

KEYWORDS:

• Hybridity
• gender
• Democratic
• Republic of Congo
• Space
• Embodiment
• Experience
• Peacebuilding

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributors

Dr Maria Martin de Almagro is a Marie Curie individual fellow in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge and an assistant professor in International Affairs at Vesalius College, Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Her scientific research interests focus on gender politics, international relations, and critical security studies. She has published widely on the UN Women, Peace, and Security agenda and its implementation in African post-conflict contexts.

ORCID

Maria Martin de Almagro http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3760-0638

Notes

1. And in this case it is I, the researcher, who is part of this international audience collective before which she, the activist, felt obliged to perform a certain identity.

2. Fieldwork notes, Kinshasa, 24 May 2017.

3. Interview with a staff member of an international NGO, Kinshasa, 26 May 2017.

4. At the time of writing (September 2017), the legal status of the petition to modify the electoral law and the procedures to follow are unclear.

5. Fieldwork notes, Kinshasa, 25 May 2017.

6. Interview with the leader of a women’s organization, 24 May 2017; interview with the leader of a women’s organization, 25 May 2017; interview with the leader of a women’s organization, 26 May 2017.

7. Intervention by a female lawyer and member of the RSLF movement at a presentation of the RSLF movement, Swedish Embassy, 24 May 2017. Kinhasa, direct quoatation.

8. Interview with the leader of a national women’s organization, Kinshasa, 24 May 2017.

9. Intervention by a high-ranking MONUSCO staff member at a presentation of the RSLF movement, Swedish Embassy, 24 May 2017. Kinhasa, rephrase of her intervention.

10. The word ‘club’ was used by several of the interviewees to explain the intricacies and divisions of the women’s movement in the country.

11. Interview with a member of staff of an international NGO, Kinshasa, 25 May 2017.

12. Fieldwork notes, Kinshasa, 24 May 2017.

13. Interview with the leader of a national women’s association based in Kinshasa, 24 May 2017.

14. Interview with the leader of a women’s organization from Sud-Kivu, Kinshasa, 27 May 2017.

15. Interview with the president of the main women’s organization of national dialogue framework, Kinshasa, 23 May 2017.

16. Interview with a UN Women staff member, Kinshasa, 24 May 2017.

17. This also points to another issue on the gendered dynamics of power in hybrid peace wherein ‘soft’ issues such as women’s issues and the implementation of the Women, Peace, and Security agenda are resisted or ignored by international and national organizations due to being considered ‘unimportant’ matters in post-conflict contexts (for a developed argument on this issue, see Ryan and Basini 2016).

18. Interview with a staff member of an international NGO, Kinshasa, 25 May 2017.

19. Informal conversation with two members of staff from international NGOs, Kinshasa, 22 May 2017.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions [grant number 706888].