"Critical Feminist Justpeace draws on field research conducted in Manipur, India among women's peacebuilding groups between 2013 and 2015 to produce a gender-sensitive, grounded theory of change for local-level peace work. Employing tools from Brooke Ackerly's approach to critical feminist methodology, this works treats women peacebuilders as political theorists who revise John Paul Lederach's ideas about conflict transformation and its goal, justpeace, to better suit their experiences and their context.Critical feminist justpeace is an intersectional orientation towards conflict transformation that reduces structural power hierarchies and direct forms of violence, increases equitable justice outcomes across public and private life, and targets historically marginalized participants. This theory contributes to two scholarly literatures and aims to guide practice. It engages first with the feminist scholars and practitioners who work on the United Nations' Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda. While it represents a landmark international achievement, the WPS agenda is not appropriate for all contexts in which women pursue peace, for reasons ranging from global power relations to national political constraints to local and cultural differences. Peacebuilders in Manipur demonstrate what women can accomplish outside of the WPS agenda. Second, the theory engages with peace studies literatures on the local turn, away from top-down peacebuilding and towards ordinary people's contributions to peace. The theory of critical feminist justpeace serves as a flexible guide for the women's local work, helping them to address local hierarchies through their own ideas while they push for peace across difference"--
In 2020, feminist scholars and activists celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the United Nations' Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda, a landmark achievement that mainstreams gendered concerns into international peace and security. Yet despite its successes, no international agenda can comprehensively address all sources of violence that women face, and the WPS community remains divided on important issues regarding implementation and substance.
In Critical Feminist Justpeace, Karie Cross Riddle presents an intersectional revision to conflict transformation, arguing that we need complementary theories and practices of gender-conscious peacebuilding for regions and conflicts that the WPS agenda cannot reach. Riddle draws on fieldwork and conversations with women peacebuilders in Manipur, India, where an intractable, low-intensity armed conflict has troubled the region for over six decades. India refuses to legally acknowledge the conflict, and thus bars international and humanitarian actors from entry. This renders the conflict ineligible for WPS intervention. The case of Manipur poses an important question: under what conditions should transnational feminists employ the WPS agenda--benefitting from its formal, international legitimacy--and under what conditions should they seek alternative paths to peace?
Critical Feminist Justpeace makes the case that we need norms and processes for feminist peacebuilding that can flexibly respond to the particularities of national and local politics and social context. To advocate for contextually-sensitive peacebuilding driven by local actors, Riddle introduces a novel theory--critical feminist justpeace--that provides an intersectional orientation towards conflict transformation. Its aim is to reduce structural power hierarchies and violence, increase equitable justice outcomes across public and private life, and target historically marginalized participants. Original and insightful, Riddle's theoretical framework serves as a flexible guide for women's local peacebuilding work.
In Critical Feminist Justpeace, Karie Cross Riddle presents an intersectional revision to conflict transformation, arguing that we need complementary theories and practices of gender-conscious peacebuilding for regions and conflicts that formal peacebuilding institutions and agendas cannot reach. Introducing a novel theoretical framework and drawing on fieldwork in Manipur, India, Riddle makes the case that we need norms and processes for feminist peacebuilding that can flexibly respond to the particularities of national and local politics and social context. Original and insightful, Riddle's theoretical framework serves as a flexible guide for women's local peacebuilding work.
