Abstract
This article contributes to the discussion of what feminist peace entails and how women peace activists in different contexts understand it. By analysing the work of three women’s organisations in Myanmar and Georgia, I highlight diversity in the conceptualisation of feminist peace. I argue that the idea of gender equality as an intrinsic aspect of peace constitutes a common feature of these organisations’ peace work. However, this goal can be pursued through different political strategies and arenas. In particular, visions of feminist peace are shaped by the context of conflict and the position of women’s organisations in relation to the conflict parties. The findings reveal substantial differences in how feminist peace is envisioned, from a militant approach focused on conflict settlement, to an alternative means of conflict transformation that seeks to reimagine key conflict issues.
Introduction
The role of women as peacebuilders, both in official peace negotiations and informal peace initiatives, particularly at the grass-roots level, has been documented and analysed by scholars and policymakers (Dayal and Christien, 2020). It has been noted that greater participation by women positively influences the durability of peace agreements and their content (Krause et al, 2018). However, there is limited knowledge about how women activists and women’s organisations define peace. The extant literature tells us little about what kind of peace women envision or fight for when they get involved in conflict resolution and peace efforts (O’Reilly, 2016; Paarlberg-Kvam, 2019). We need to understand the conception of peace embraced by women’s organisations in order to understand their peace activism, the means they use to carry out their work and which actors they consider as relevant stakeholders.
Recent feminist scholarship has advanced the discussion around definitions of feminist peace (Confortini, 2006; Aharoni, 2017). Generally, feminist peace situates gender equality at the core of the structural transformations necessary to achieve sustainable peace (Harders, 2011; Korac, 2016). Yet, feminist peace is not a homogeneous concept (Wibben and Donahoe, 2020; Väyrynen et al, 2021). On the contrary, there are nuances in how gender equality and peace intersect in feminist peace agendas, as well as in the ways in which social transformation is conceptualised and pursued.
In this article, I aim to dispel the assumption that there is a single conception of feminist peace. I do so by investigating the differing ways in which women’s organisations in conflict settings advocate for and work to achieve peace. The three case studies analysed in this article indicate that a women’s organisation’s vision of peace is influenced by its relative position to the main conflict parties. Of the three cases considered, the women’s organisations less closely affiliated with the conflict parties advocate for conflict transformation by seeking to reframe the conflict. In contrast, the organisations more closely connected to the conflict parties evaluate peace against what they, and the conflict parties, believe to be an acceptable political settlement. This analysis is a first step to distinguishing a causal factor to explain the diversity of women’s organisations’ visions of peace, adding to, and challenging, the existing literature that tends towards a monolithic definition of feminist peace.
By focusing on the ideas and practices of women’s organisations, this study enriches the theoretical debate of what feminist peace might mean. Further, it challenges homogeneous conceptualisations by shedding light on the empirical diversity of women’s visions of peace and how these visions are articulated in relation to particular landscapes of armed conflict, peace efforts and power relations. The empirical material is from Myanmar and Georgia, and explores the conception of feminist peace underpinning the work and political goals of three women’s organisations: Kachin Women’s Association Thailand (KWAT) and the Alliance for Gender Inclusion in the Peace Process (AGIPP) from Myanmar; and Fund Sukhumi from Georgia. My analysis focuses on three main aspects of their visions of peace: the organisations’ articulation between gender equality and peace; the means used in pursuit of these visions of peace; and the relationships these organisations consider strategic for their pursuit of peace. Although these organisations share the idea of gender equality as a key aspect of peace, they differ significantly in terms of their main political goals, and they have chosen different arenas and networks of stakeholders. The comparative analysis of the three cases illustrates how women’s particular visions of peace influenced their political agendas and the ways in which they have approached (or rejected) the official peace negotiations in each case.
The article proceeds as follows. First, I review the main arguments and existing debates on feminist peace. Second, I provide an overview of the conflicts in Myanmar and Georgia, introduce the selected organisations, and describe the source material and methodology. Then, I explore the organisations’ visions of peace by analysing how they approach the agenda of gender equality in relation to peace, considering the means by which their vision of peace can be materialised and the relationships that they establish for this purpose. In the discussion, I analyse these different visions of feminist peace, which vary from a militant approach focused on achieving a conflict settlement consistent with the political goals of particular conflict parties, to alternative means of conflict transformation that seek to sidestep or reimagine the most politically sensitive issues. Finally, in the conclusion, I discuss how the key findings advance theoretical and empirical explorations of feminist peace.
Conceptualising and exploring feminist peace(s)
Gendered conceptions of peace are generally grounded on the idea that peace is conditional on the achievement of equality and freedom, meaning the realisation of both self-determination and human rights (Cockburn, 2010; Confortini, 2011). According to Reardon and Snauwaert (2015, cited in Wibben et al, 2019: 65), most feminist ideals of peace correspond to this idea of positive peace. Therefore, an analysis of gender as a social construct that shapes relations of power and structural causes of violence expands the conceptualisation of positive peace (Confortini, 2006; Björkdahl and Selimovic, 2016). Feminist scholars have also contributed to our understanding of structural violence. Revealing continuities of violence through gender relations and dynamics of subordination (Cockburn, 2007), feminist peace scholarship recognises each act of violence as a manifestation of a structural inequality and gendered power relations, not as a stand-alone act (Yadav and Horn, 2020: 105). Similarly, True (2020) argues that a feminist conceptualisation of peace also requires the elimination of all forms of gender-based violence, including both physical and non-physical.
This conceptualisation implies not only the elimination of gender-based violence, but also the transformation of gender relations and the advancement of women’s rights. Feminist visions of peace are often perceived as requiring a transformation in social structures, whereby gender equality and social and economic justice are conditions and forms of peace (Reilly, 2007). As True (2020: 89) argues: ‘if the achievement of “peace” does not include the movement toward gender equality and social and economic justice within and across every group then the conditions for and the perpetration of domination and violence against women and girls and non-gender conforming individuals in particular will persist’. Therefore, in responding to unequal gender relations as one of the root causes of war, a feminist programme of gender transformation is needed (Cockburn, 2010). Such a transformation is framed as requiring a holistic approach to peace, including challenging foundational, constitutive elements of war, such as patriarchy, militarism, racism, classism and economic exploitation (Enloe, 2007; Cohn, 2013).
Yet, such an expansive, holistic conception of peace does not always resonate with the experiences of women activists in conflict settings. In fact, the roles of women activists are multiple and often contradictory, informed by the need to subvert power structures within both the state and the armed movements (Cárdenas and Hedström, 2021). While anti-militarism is frequently associated with feminist peace (Al-Ali and Tas, 2017), feminist mobilisation for peace can sometimes take place within militarised structures of armed insurgency (Kaufman and Williams, 2013; Olivius and Hedström, 2019). This relates to the way in which context-specific visions of, and strategies to pursue, feminist peace are articulated in relation to the position of women within the conflict dynamics and power relations of particular landscapes of armed conflict and peace efforts. Previous scholarship indicates that while feminist visions of peace are characterised by the recognition of gender equality as an intrinsic aspect of peace, they also differ on a number of key elements, including the key strategies, arenas and relationships that are represented as important for peace. Such strategies can vary, from a focus on high-level peace negotiations, to a focus on everyday sites of peacebuilding (Wibben et al, 2019: 93). Moreover, feminist visions of peace can be emancipatory but also gradually transformative. Thus, in order to better understand how feminist peace is conceptualised and pursued, we must first explore how gender equality and peace intersect in the ideas and practices of women activists and organisations in diverse empirical contexts, such as Myanmar and Georgia.
Exploring feminist peace in different contexts
Contemporary civil conflicts rarely reflect the stylised narrative of two opposing armed groups constantly doing battle with each other. Instead, conflicts constitute a type of political order with multiple actors, whose relationships range from active cooperation to contention, and where periods of fighting may be intermixed with uneasy calm and/or peace negotiation attempts (Staniland, 2012; Arjona, 2014). Conflict types range from full-scale war to so-called ‘frozen conflicts’, where decades of negotiations can pass without any tangible progress towards conflict resolution (Smetana and Ludvik, 2019). As these situations change over time and are experienced differently by different actors within the same conflict context, a comparative approach can explore the views and activities of women’s organisations across contexts in order to analyse how visions of feminist peace are conceptualised.
In Myanmar, the government has been fighting dozens of rebel groups since the country’s independence in 1948 (Gravers, 2007). Most rebel groups are mobilised along minority ethnic lines, so-called ethnic armed organisations (EAOs) that demand greater autonomy and the establishment of federalism. The largest EAOs are made up of the Kachin, Karen, Shan and Wa minority groups based along the borders with China and Thailand. Following a 1962 military coup, the military regime (Tatmadaw) remained in power until 2011. The Tatmadaw’s repressive policies and the ongoing political conflict resulted in massive human rights violations and high levels of internal displacement (Simpson and Farrelly, 2020).
The Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) is the main EAO representing the Kachin ethnic group. It formed in the early 1960s and fought against the government for three decades (Lintner, 1994). After bilateral negotiations, the KIO signed a ceasefire in 1994 following promises that it could maintain de facto control of its territory and economic development, and that a process for conflict resolution would follow. In 2008, the military junta adopted a new constitution outlining a partial transition to democracy, though the armed forces maintained substantial political control. The constitution also demanded the demobilisation of EAOs with ceasefire agreements, which strained KIO–government relations. Consequently, although 2011 saw the first elected regime for 50 years in the country, fighting resumed in the Kachin-inhabited territories in Northern Myanmar (Sadan, 2015). The first organisation that I focus on in this article emerged out of this conflict context. KWAT was founded in Thailand in 1999 by Kachin women who had fled armed conflict in Kachin areas of Myanmar. KWAT has since become a very prominent actor within the Kachin ethnic community, and its agenda has expanded from an initial focus on humanitarian aid to promoting women’s participation in policy and peace issues. Although it is an independent organisation, KWAT has remained consistently committed to the ideal of Kachin self-determination as advocated by the KIO.
The inauguration of a semi-civilian government in 2011 led to increased political space for civil society in Myanmar, prompting the rapid growth of new organisations and networks for women (South, 2008). As new peace talks led to the signing of a nationwide ceasefire agreement (NCA) in 2015 (Simpson and Farrelly, 2020), one of the key focal points for women organisers and activists in the urban centres of Myanmar was advocating for women’s participation in the official peace process. This was the case for AGIPP, a multi-ethnic alliance of organisations and networks founded in 2014 that advocates for women’s substantive participation in the peace process and the inclusion of a gender perspective in the peace talks, agreements and implementation strategies (AGIPP, 2017). Thus, KWAT and AGIPP have, in fact, emerged from very different positions concerning armed conflicts in the country, which has shaped their distinct definition of peace and has focused their peace work on different issues and arenas.
In contrast to Myanmar, where conflict is ongoing, the conflict in Georgia is characterised as frozen, or superficially peaceful. Yet, there are unresolved disputes over the breakaway territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia that can be traced back to Georgia’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1990 and a political agenda in Tbilisi that limited the inclusion of minority ethnic groups (George, 2009). Separatist movements emerged in the regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, leading to active conflict in South Ossetia during 1991–92, 2004 and 2008, and in Abkhazia from 1992 to 1993. In 2008, after the ‘five-day war’ between Georgia and South Ossetia, with the intervention of Russia, the Geneva International Discussions (GID) and the Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism (IPRM) were established as international mediation processes in order to guarantee stability in the region. However, these initiatives have not produced tangible results.
Like in Myanmar, women’s activism has been present throughout the political transformation of Georgia (Ivecovic, 2008). During the 1990s, with the outbreak of the conflicts, several women’s organisations were created to provide a humanitarian response for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and conflict-affected populations, as well as to participate in peace and reconciliation efforts between Georgia and the breakaway territories. Women’s organisations have prioritised strategies for conflict transformation over conflict resolution not only because the immediate cessation of hostilities is less important in a frozen conflict setting, but also because the promotion of gender equality and peace are mutually reinforcing (Cárdenas, 2019). In this context, I will focus on the work of Fund Sukhumi, an organisation founded in 19941 by internally displaced Abkhaz women with the aim of fostering women’s participation in humanitarian assistance and in peace efforts across conflict divides.
Considering the differences in conflict dynamics, this study aims to explore how KWAT, AGIPP and Fund Sukhumi view and pursue their visions of peace. Despite a common goal of promoting gender equality and women’s participation in peace efforts, each organisation deploys specific means and recognises different actors to materialise these goals. Further, each one embodies a particular understanding of how gender equality and peace intersect.
Methods and data collection
Theoretically, ‘notions of peace are significant due to their strong moral and political appeal, which makes them powerful tools that can lend legitimacy to political actions and agendas’ (Hedström and Olivius, 2021: 3). These ideas are embodied and transformed by actors involved in peace efforts. Therefore, motivations, ideology and place in the conflict influence organisations’ concepts of peace.
In order to respond to the question of how women’s organisations envision feminist peace in Myanmar and Georgia, this multiple-case study uses participant observation and semi-structured interviews, alongside a review of documents published by the organisations. The analysis of interviews, field notes and documents investigates three themes: first, how the goals of gender equality and peace were described in relation to each other, specifically, I wished to hear from the participants if they believed, for example, that gender equality is an intrinsic aspect of peace, a precondition for peace or an outcome of a just peace; second, the organisations’ means of achieving their visions of peace; and, third, the relationships each organisation considers strategic for the pursuit of peace.
I did fieldwork in Georgia from March to May 2016 and in June 2019. During these periods, I conducted 23 semi-structured interviews with women activists and representatives of several women’s organisations. Similarly, in Chiang Mai, Thailand (where the KWAT headquarters are located), and Yangon, Myanmar, I conducted 20 interviews from October to December 2018. These interviews, conducted mainly in English, lasted from one to two hours and addressed the interviewees’ experiences as activists and as members of the organisations. They also shared their reflections about conflict dynamics and ongoing peace negotiations. Further, interviewees discussed the opportunities for and challenges to women’s participation in conflict resolution.
I also joined KWAT’s team as a volunteer and conducted participant observation. This experience gave me insight into the organisational dynamics and relationships with other strategic actors, enabling me to delve deeper into the organisation’s views, practices and the knowledge underpinning these practices (Bueger, 2014). This experience was documented in fieldnotes, which include descriptive observations and reflections. Other sources of information for this study are policy papers, reports and statements published by the selected organisations.
Visions of feminist peace in Myanmar and Georgia
This section explores the conceptions of feminist peace articulated by KWAT, AGIPP and Fund Sukhumi, and the way in which each organisation envisions the social and political changes needed to achieve its idea of peace. To do so, the analysis focuses on three aspects of the organisations: how the goals of gender equality and peace are articulated in their vision of feminist peace; what are the means of achieving their vision of peace; and what are the relationships that these organisations consider strategic to pursue and materialise their vision.
Connecting gender equality and peace
Does peace lead to gender equality? Or, should gender equality come before peace? This section identifies how the organisations in question situate gender equality in relation to peace, showing that they hold different views of whether gender equality is an outcome of a conflict settlement, a precondition to peace or an intrinsic aspect of peace.
“Real peace, genuine peace … adjusted to federalism to ensure the self-determination and also the truth. It’s really important to have equality, not only among the ethnic people, but also gender equality”2 – with these words, a KWAT activist describes the idea of feminist peace embraced by her organisation, which implies both Kachin self-determination and a political space in which women actively participate. KWAT’s vision of peace cannot be understood separately from the Kachin ethno-political struggle. In fact, Kachin women’s activism is largely located within an ethno-nationalist project, and in many cases, it is motivated by a sense of duty towards the Kachin community (Hedström, 2016). Thus, since the start, KWAT’s vision of peace has been closely related to the KIO and its idea of federal democracy as an indispensable condition for any political settlement of the conflict. The KIO pursues this goal politically and militarily through the Kachin Independence Army (KIA). KWAT has supported this structure as a whole, including endorsing armed struggle as a means to achieve political goals. This position must be understood in the context of persisting armed conflict, human rights violations and displacement in the Kachin region of Myanmar. Therefore, KWAT’s response rejects anti-militarism as unrealistic and, in contrast, conceives of armed struggle as indispensable for the protection of Kachin women and the realisation of their rights and equality.
‘Some people argue that when you talk about ethnic rights, that is equality, so you don’t need gender equality. That is equality already. It is still very challenging for people to understand that even if you have rights for the ethnic groups, you still need to struggle for women’s rights.’4
KWAT’s vision of peace incorporates the transformation of gender relations. Yet, it relies on an intersectional idea in which ethnic equality and gender equality are valued on equal terms. If the goal of gender equality were achieved in the absence of self-determination, the idea of peace would not be fulfilled. Thus, the goal of gender equality cannot be separated from political solutions to core conflict issues and long-standing dynamics of injustice and insecurity for minority ethnic populations.
In contrast, other organisations in Myanmar, such as AGIPP, conceive gender equality as a precondition for peace: “If we look at the source of conflict, it is unbalanced power. Promoting gender equality is trying to balance power.”5 With this argument, an AGIPP representative explains how she perceives the link between gender equality and conflict. Thus, gender equality represents a path to peace, or a condition that can make it possible, if it is allowed to influence every area of the political and the peace agenda. Thus, this organisation envisions a type of peace that is only achievable through the active participation of women in all stages of conflict resolution and peacebuilding, including formal peace negotiations.
Gender equality as a path to peace requires a gradual transformation of political and institutional structures. According to AGIPP, this is achievable by permeating such structures and by influencing narratives and dynamics from the inside. In contrast to KWAT, the type of peace that AGIPP envisions should come about through the incorporation of gender perspectives in the peace negotiations. Therefore, AGIPP recognises the NCA as a legitimate framework, and although it is aware of the framework’s limitations, it recognises the benefits of getting access in order to foster women’s participation and incorporate discussion of gender in the negotiations. For this reason, AGIPP has been active in providing analysis and recommendations to the sector-wide policy proposals of the Union Peace Conference Dialogue Joint Committee (UPCDJC),6 alongside constantly advocating for the incorporation of international frameworks related to the enjoyment of women’s human rights. Further, when analysing the content of the NCA and means of implementing it, AGIPP has emphasised the need for a more holistic approach to gender issues and called on “actors involved in the peace process … to apply a ‘gendered power analysis’ to their work”.7
‘Peace is sustainability. I don’t care about the final status [referring to the breakaway territory of Abkhazia]; I care about peace. The conflict has happened, everything destroyed…. Now we have to build, but we can’t build the roof first. We need to create this step by step, and this step is just the opportunity to study, to have a good economic situation, not face social problems…. And then we can decide together what could be the status, the final status of our coexistence or cooperation.’8
‘Peace, where human rights are not violated, is a situation where my daughter has the possibility to study, to be vocal in her work. It’s freedom from fear and gender-based violence. This is peace for me. Now, I am struggling to know how many women are victims of psychological, economic, physical violence.’9
status-neutral approach is the most realistic and constructive way to achieving progress in interaction with the Abkhaz side and tackling a number of existing humanitarian and economic problems. Even in the presence of fundamentally different positions on the final status, it is possible to start a dialogue and even more importantly, take specific steps.
The visions of these organisations indicate how gender equality and peace can intersect in different ways in the goals of women’s organisations, from the transformation of everyday local dynamics, to the long-term ethno-political struggle.
Materialising feminist peace
The organisations studied in this article offer different approaches and indicate how feminist peace can be articulated in positions of resistance and cooperation with the official channels of conflict resolution. KWAT represents a ‘militant feminist peace’, whose discourse emphasises support for the KIO and the need for resistance against the Tatmadaw, while denying the NCA as a legitimate instrument of conflict resolution. Advocacy efforts building on a systematic documentation of cases of human rights violations perpetrated by the Tatmadaw are one of the most important means by which KWAT seeks to shame and hold the Tatmadaw accountable in international forums (Hedström and Olivius, 2021). By doing so, KWAT addresses both its goal of supporting the ethno-political project and the goal of highlighting the disproportionate effect that the conflict has had on Kachin women. In a recent statement on the sixth anniversary of the still-unresolved murder of two Kachin teachers, allegedly by Tatmadaw soldiers, KWAT stresses that ‘six years on, the nightmare of military repression also continues in Kwang Kha. The village lies in an active conflict zone, where the Burma Army has deployed thousands of elite combat troops to annihilate the Kachin Independence Army’ (KWAT, 2021: 2). This statement illustrates KWAT’s focus on condemning Tatmadaw abuses and its belief that without armed resistance, there are good reasons to fear the abuse and annihilation of Kachin women.
Thus, for KWAT, ethnic equality and gender equality are perceived as intrinsically linked, but they are often difficult to harmonise in practice. In fact, KWAT has been critical of the limited space that Kachin leadership allows women and argues that the materialisation of federal democracy implies the transformation of social dynamics and women’s human rights. In order to influence KIO, KWAT has been supporting the Kachin Women’s Association (KWA), which constitutes the women’s wing of the KIO. By strengthening the negotiation skills and political knowledge of KWA members, KWAT aims to guarantee more decisive and qualified participation by women who can integrate gender equality in Kachin political agendas. More than 50 women with leadership positions within the KWA have participated in trainings and internship programmes aimed at consolidating a strong platform of women within the structure of Kachin leadership and transcending the role of KIO supporters.
AGIPP has prioritised advocacy for national policy change and the promotion of women’s involvement in the existing, official channels for peace negotiation. In contrast to KWAT’s position towards Myanmar’s government, AGIPP recognises and supports governmental instruments for the enjoyment of women’s rights. For instance, AGIPP has participated in the implementation of the National Strategic Plan for the Advancement of Women and has a seat on Myanmar’s National Commission for Women,11 where it is co-chairing working groups on development and on women’s issues and peace and security. Although AGIPP has been critical of the limitations of some of the governmental channels, they acknowledge the importance of making use of them as an entry point for further political developments. AGIPP is also aware of the gender bias in the peace negotiations, while still recognising the NCA as a legitimate instrument.
By engaging with the official negotiations, AGIPP sheds light on the importance of examining how gender dimensions, perspectives and priorities inform broader power structures (AGIPP, 2015). This means more than the token inclusion of women delegates or paying attention to high-profile single issues like wartime sexual violence. Indeed, AGIPP has argued that by maintaining a ‘narrow focus on sexual violence, combined with a culture of impunity, the NCA sends a further signal that addressing all forms of violence against women is not a priority for peacebuilding, and that women’s rights are disposable in the peace process’ (AGIPP, 2018). Gender equality was discussed as part of the political sector session during the 21st Century Panglong Conference in 2018, which AGIPP considers an important step forward: ‘In order to establish a democratic federal union, a genuine gender equality policy should be laid down and implemented’ (AGIPP and WLB, 2018). Further, the organisation argues for the necessity of ‘broadening the view of women’ beyond the idea of women as vulnerable persons and recognising their capacities in recovery, resettlement and social development (AGIPP, 2017).
In contrast, Fund Sukhumi has prioritised means that work independently from the official channels of negotiation. Building on its conflict transformation approach, in its pursuit of peace as social transformation, Fund Sukhumi has prioritised the use of exchanges of experience and inter-community dialogue between women from Georgia and Abkhazia. By scrutinising everyday realities for women on both sides of the conflict, Fund Sukhumi has not only raised awareness of women’s agency, but also advanced the discussion within communities on how gender relations permeate conflict dynamics and why it is crucial to understand human security from a gender perspective. Fund Sukhumi’s vision of feminist peace as existing in the everyday, embodied lives of women has led its initiatives to focus on developing women’s capacities as paths of mobilisation towards gender equality (Gamakharia, 2015).
Relationships
The way in which women’s organisations articulate visions of peace, as well as design their strategies to pursue it, are influenced both by conflict dynamics, as seen in the previous section, and by the relationships that women’s organisations consider to be vital for achieving their political goals. In some cases, proximity to one of the parties in the conflict is considered necessary and even strategic for a group to be able to influence the peace agenda. In other cases, women’s organisations prefer to keep their distance from the conflict parties and explore alternative arenas and actors.
As seen in previous sections, the relationship of KWAT to the KIO has been influential in defining KWAT’s political positions. Further, there is reciprocity in this relationship, and KWAT has gained space and recognition from the KIO. By being vocal in rejecting the 2008 Constitution and consistently investigating human rights violations by the Tatmadaw, KWAT supports KIO’s rhetoric and resistance. Moreover, engagement with civil society and the grass roots provides KIO with a source of legitimacy (De la Cour Venning, 2019).
However, KWAT envisions peace as an ideal not only for the Kachin community, but also for the political transformation in Myanmar as a whole. In order to materialise this vision of peace, KWAT has also participated in broader networks, such as the multi-ethnic women’s alliance Women’s League of Burma (WLB). In this arena, and along with other ethnic-based organisations, KWAT has led the project of consolidating a platform for the enjoyment of women’s rights and women’s participation in peace efforts. Nevertheless, there are also structural differences between KWAT and other WLB member organisations. The multi-ethnic alliance WLB has focused on the promotion of gender equality as a precondition for peace (Cárdenas and Olivius, 2021), in a similar manner to AGIPP, whereas KWAT has a different prioritisation of needs. Gender equality is considered a major goal, but the protection of women in conflict-affected areas is an issue that requires an immediate response.
AGIPP also works with a wide range of networks and organisations, but in contrast to KWAT, it recognises the government of Myanmar and the Parliament as strategic actors. This choice is consonant with AGIPP’s goals of promoting women’s participation within institutional arenas and prioritising gender quality as an input to the peace negotiations. AGIPP’s network includes ethnic-based organisations, and its conception of peace encompasses the support of federalisation and self-determination. However, it has also been critical of ethnic groups’ structures and practices that undermine women’s rights and participation. As one of its representatives argues: “Whenever we meet leaders [of ethnic armed groups], we say, ‘You want federalism, right? You want autonomy? Then, why don’t you give your own woman her own autonomy? You need to acknowledge power sharing between men and women.’”12
This argument is also expressed in policy papers, where AGIPP has argued that equal respect for minority ethnic groups’ customs and traditions should only be granted as long as they ‘do not negatively impact human rights and gender equality’ (AGIPP, 2017). Thus, while AGIPP is less vocal than KWAT when it comes to the political settlement of armed conflict, and it steers clear of the political sensitivities that such positioning entails, its lack of affiliation with minority ethnic resistance movements – and the lack of personal experiences of war on the part of most AGIPP activists – allows the group to more openly criticise the gendered power relations within these groups.
The decision to stay out of the political settlement of conflicts is shared by Fund Sukhumi. To materialise their vision, Fund Sukhumi works with several stakeholders, including grass-roots organisations based both in Georgia and in Abkhazia, civil society networks, and international non-governmental organisations. By articulating strategies with these actors, Fund Sukhumi aims to amplify and replicate women’s peace efforts at the local level. Concerning the ongoing official negotiation, Fund Sukhumi recognises the GID and the IPRM as legitimate arenas but is aware, and even critical, of the limitations of their agendas and vision of peace. Yet, given the operational character of the latter, Fund Sukhumi still considers the IPRM as an arena in which realistic claims concerning human security and the everyday needs of conflict-affected populations can be addressed.
In contrast to KWAT, Fund Sukhumi and AGIPP recognise the official negotiation processes as legitimate, yet they differ in how they prioritise and approach these. Avoiding what conflict parties perceive as top political issues may provide activists with space to pursue change that has immediate effects in women’s everyday lives (as in the case of Fund Sukhumi), while enabling official recognition of gender equality issues because they are not seen as politically sensitive (as in the case of AGIPP).
Discussion
By analysing the way in which gender equality and peace intersect in the goals, agendas and strategies of KWAT, AGIPP and Fund Sukhumi, it is possible to identify three different visions of feminist peace. These diverse visions challenge tendencies towards an expansive and holistic conception of feminist peace. For example, while feminist conceptions of peace can be anti-militarist, feminist activists can also be prompted to draw on – and support – armed struggle given their position in a particular conflict context (Viterna, 2013; Hildebrand, 2016). The case of KWAT aptly illustrates a militant vision of feminist peace that aligns with the main goals of an ethno-political project and positions gender equality and ethnic equality as intertwined. From their perspective, armed struggle can be a means to achieve justice, including gender justice for minority women, and loyalty to the armed struggle of the KIO is therefore seen as essential. KWAT’s view of a just political solution to the conflict requires federal democracy and self-determination for the ethnic group, as well as equal rights and participation for women within Kachin communities. Thus, the core conflict issues cannot be put aside or seen as secondary, but neither should gender equality wait for ‘the real issues’ to be resolved first.
A second vision of feminist peace is articulated by AGIPP; here, gender equality is understood as a precondition of peace. In contrast to KWAT, AGIPP considers the promotion of gender equality as meaningful in itself, and the inclusion of women in the peace negotiations, despite the flaws of this process, is considered a key path towards the incremental achievement of a gender-just peace. To realise this vision, AGIPP believes that it is necessary to work within the system and to permeate existing structures in pursuit of change from within. AGIPP navigates peace activism and a gender equality agenda through advocacy work aimed at direct participation in the peace negotiations and the inclusion of gender perspectives in the official negotiations. This means that the promotion of women’s inclusion is seen as a meaningful, incremental path towards feminist peace, even within a flawed and unequal system for peacemaking and governance.
Fund Sukhumi articulates a conception of feminist peace focused on women leading a process of social transformation through everyday practices, relationships and narratives. The everyday is foregrounded as an arena that enables actors to recognise common experiences and needs across conflict divides, and thus makes it possible to sidestep the deadlocked status and to instead foster gender equality and women’s empowerment as a basis for the transformation of narratives and relationships across divides. From this perspective, the struggle for gender equality can be pursued independently of a political solution regarding overarching conflict issues. In this matter, there are commonalities with AGIPP. Their choice to avoid taking a stand on issues of political settlement need not be understood as a failure to recognise broader structures of inequality and injustice in their visions of peace, or as a means of depoliticising gender equality. Instead, it can be seen as a way of displacing established narratives of conflict and peace, and finding new means to create change.
Conclusion
This article has sought to explore and expand how feminist peace is envisioned and pursued through case studies of three women’s organisations in Myanmar and Georgia. I argue that engaging with the ideas and practices of women’s organisations adds new insights that can enrich theoretical conversations in feminist peace research and challenge homogeneous conceptualisations of what feminist peace might mean. The findings reveal substantial differences in how feminist peace is envisioned in different ways, including: the organisations’ articulation between gender equality and peace; the means used in pursuit of these visions of peace; and the relationships these organisations consider strategic for their pursuit of peace. Further, this article sheds light on the importance of analysing how conflict dynamics and the proximity of women’s organisations to conflict parties influence their vision of peace, and how they prioritise which means and arenas to focus on. Despite the differences between the specific conflict contexts, these cases also reveal commonalities, such as the conception of gender equality as a political and security issue.
The comparison of KWAT, AGIPP and Fund Sukhumi indicates that women’s organisations that are less closely affiliated with conflict actors will be more likely to rely on an idea of conflict transformation, seeking to reframe conflict issues and divides. In contrast, for organisations more closely connected to the warring sides, visions of feminist peace will be geared towards influencing the political settlement in order to achieve the goals of associated conflict parties. The comparative analysis thus points to the importance of understanding feminist peace in relation to women’s diverse positions in particular conflict contexts and localised experiences.
Finally, this study provides analytical tools to characterise women’s diverse visions of peace. By exploring the nuances of how and when gender equality and peace intersect, this article sheds light on the multiple possibilities for imagining and pursuing feminist peace. The three organisations examined here point to the importance of understanding local visions of feminist peace in relation to specific conflict dynamics and relationships. Further analysis of other women’s organisations and movements in additional conflict contexts will be needed to identify more general patterns in how visions of feminist peace are conceptualised and to further explore how these visions are shaped by the nature of the conflict context and landscape of conflict actors. In addition, underlining the need for further empirical studies, this research also highlights the importance of advancing the ongoing theoretical discussion on the plurality of conceptualisations of feminist peace and their implications for defining better tools for conflict resolution and peacebuilding.
Notes
Originally founded as the Organisation of Women of Georgia for Peace and Life, the organisation adopted the name Fund Sukhumi in 1997.
Interview, Chiang Mai, 15 November 2018.
Interview, Chiang Mai, 19 December 2018.
Interview, Chiang Mai, 15 November 2018.
Interview, Yangon, 12 December 2018.
Other mechanisms of the NCA include the Joint Monitoring Committee (JMC), Union Peace Dialogue Joint Committee (UPDJC) and Joint Implementation Coordination Meeting (JICM), as well as JMCs at the state/region and local levels.
Interview, Yangon, 12 December 2018.
Interview, Tbilisi, 14 June 2019.
Interview, Tbilisi, 14 June 2019.
Interview, Tbilisi, 13 June 2019.
This commission operates within Myanmar’s Ministry of Social Welfare.
Interview, Yangon, 12 December 2018.
Funding
This work was supported by the Vetenskapsrådet under grant numbers 2013–06334 and 2015-01756.
Acknowledgements
Special thanks to the representatives of KWAT, Fund Sukhumi and AGIPP, whose knowledge and generosity were crucial in the development of this research. I also want to thank the editors of this special issue for their constructive suggestions, as well as the two anonymous reviewers for their careful reading and helpful feedback. This article also benefited from valuable comments and fruitful discussions with Elisabeth Olivius and Jarstad.
Conflict of interest
The author declares that there is no conflict of interest.
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