(Un)Desirable Participants: International Expertise, Local Agency and the WPS Agenda

International actors working to implement the UN Women, Peace and Security Agenda emphasize the importance of partnership with local women’s organizations and activists. Moreover, women in conflict-affected contexts have exhibited great creativity in making the WPS agenda useful as a tool that enhances their struggles and attracts international attention. However, feminist scholarship has also highlighted how international agendas and funding priorities distort local women’s practices and crowd out their visions for peace and security. Building on data from Myanmar, this study examines how and when women in conflict contexts can participate in the WPS agenda. Drawing on interviews with international gender experts and women activists, the analysis demonstrates how desirable and undesirable participant subjectivities are produced through WPS practices and discourses. In particular, three undesirable subjects are identified: the aggressive woman; the silent woman; and the woman who is too focused on immediate community needs. Critically examining the production of these three subject positions, which are problematized and rejected by WPS actors and discourses, we discuss what kind of local woman can be recognized as a desirable participant in the implementation of the WPS agenda, and draw attention to persistent power relations that shape political space and inclusion in peacebuilding.