When is peace? The Uncertain Outcome of Accord

Professor Cynthia Cockburn, Department of Sociology, City University London

Northern Ireland’s ‘Troubles’ were ended by the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, the ethno-national aggression in Bosnia-Herzegovina was halted by the Dayton Accord of 1995, and the Israel – Palestine conflict was slowed for some years by the Oslo Accords of 1993. Revisiting a study made by the author in these three countries during the late 1990s, this article draws on interviews conducted in 2012 with feminist activists of that earlier period. They reveal divergences in their own organizations, and in the directions in which their societies have evolved in the years following ‘accord’. Their accounts of continuing violence, unresolved ethnic tensions, persistent gender inequality and elusive democracy throw into question the meaning of ‘peace’.

Prof Cynthia Cockburn: When is peace? The Uncertain Outcome of Accord

Biography

Cynthia Cockburn is a feminist researcher and writer, living in London. She is a Visiting Professor in the Department of Sociology, City University London, and an Honorary Professor in the Centre for the Study of Women and Gender, University of Warwick. She is active in Women in Black against War and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. Her most recent book is Antimilitarism: Political and Gender Dynamics of Peace Movements (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). Earlier books on gender in processes of war and peace include: From Where We Stand: War, Women’s Activism and Feminist Analysis (Zed Books), The Line: Women, Partition and the Gender Order in Cyprus (Zed Books (2004), The Postwar Moment: Militaries, Masculinities and International Peacekeeping , co-edited with Dubravka Zarkov (Lawrence and Wishart, 2002) and The Space Between Us: Negotiating Gender and National  Identities in Conflict (Zed Books 1998).

Organiser: Bloomsbury Gender Network hosted by the SOAS Centre for Gender Studies

Contact email: rs94@soas.ac.uk