Gendering Peace in Violent Peripheries : Marginality, Masculinity, and Feminist Agency

"This book forwards Assam (and Northeast India) as a specific location for studying operations of gendered power in multi-ethnic, conflict-habituated geopolitical peripheries globally. In the shifting and relational margins of such peripheral societies, power and agency are constantly negotiated and in flux. Notions of masculinity are redefined in an interlaced environment of militarization, hyper-masculinization, and gendered violence. These interconnections inform victimhood and agency among the most vulnerable marginalized constituencies - namely, women and migrants. By centering the marginalized in its inquiry, the book analyzes obstacles to achieving positive, organic peace based on cooperation and mutual healing. The tools used to perpetuate an endless cycle of violence that makes conflict a habit - a way of life - are identified in order to enable resistance against them from within the margins. Such resistance must be based on reflexivity and strategic, cautious radicalism. This involves critically interrogating the inherent connections between engendered pasts and feminist futures, local changes and global contexts, as well as between small, incremental changes and big shifts impacting entire societies, nations, and global orders. This book will be of much interest to students of ethnic conflict, conflict resolution, feminist peace, and Asian/South Asian politics"-- Provided by publisher Cover Half Title Series Information Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Table of Contents About the Author Acknowledgments Introduction: Engendering Peace Why Northeast India? Assam and Northeast India The Conflicts Engendering the Northeast’s Conflict Literature Making Space in Asian Feminisms Gender Studies and Northeast Women Existing Approaches in Northeast Conflict Literature Methodology Ethnography and Feminist Ethnography Reflexivity Interviews Documentary Sources Book Map Notes References 1 Why Assam?: Making Peace in Peripheries Introduction Assam in Conflict Gendered Conflicts in Violent Peripheries Benign Patriarchies Hyper Aggression Many Violences Multiple Centers and Moving Margins Power in the Periphery Engendered Peace Assam and Asian Peripheries Peace in the Peripheries Northeast in the Asian Century Notes References 2 Men in Margins: Masculinity and Conflict Introduction Mainland Machismo Masculinities in the Margins When Patriarchies Collide Fear, Conflict, Violence Notes References 3 Many Violences: Conflict as Habit Introduction Gendered Violences Marginalized Gender Migrant Other Structures of Violence In Policy In Public Rhetoric Tools of Violence Breaking the Habit of Violence Notes References 4 Women Underground: Marginal, Peripheral? Introduction Women in Public Politics Women Fragmented Women’s Agency Isolation Recalibration Transformation and Transcendence Women and the Margins Notes References Postscript: Peace Praxis and Reflexivity Introduction Reflection Connection Past, Present, Future Individual and Collective Local and Global Interrogation Notes References Index This series aims to establish a home for conceptually challenging and empir-ically authoritative studies about how feminist peace approaches can help to move forward the study of peace, justice, violence, and conflict. More specif-ically, FPR has the potential to renew approaches to traditional fields such as peacebuilding, mediation, conflict prevention, international interventions, or peacekeeping, by challenging conventional understandings of how peace is built, and by bringing in new perspectives pertaining for instance to environ-mental peacebuilding, or to indigenous and decolonial approaches to peace.