Gendering Security: Taking Stock and Generating Dialogue

Gender and Security is a thriving field of research in which scholars have started to address a broad range of issues on the political economy of war and peace, military masculinities, and violence and (in)securities since the 1990’s. Nevertheless, as the field evolves, we notice a division between those studying gender and security from a feminist political economy perspective, that focuses more on the material dimensions of gender (in)security as they relate to the neoliberal global economy, migration and climate change, and feminist security studies, concerned with the study of the discourses and practices of violence, militarism and peacekeeping. This section is meant to take stock and initiate a dialogue across such evolving research boundaries by focusing on cross-cutting issues, including the role of intersectionality, racism, or ethnicity as well as intersex and genderqueer. We are interested in proposals for panels addressing problems and developments of international security broadly construed ranging from the role gender plays in conflicts involving state as well as non-state actors, peacekeeping efforts, terrorist networks, violence and insecurity in global care chains, the commodification of security and marketization of military masculinities, security institutions including governmental organizations, such as the UN or NATO, or militaries and private security companies, though also ones which address more recent security-related issues such as COVID-19 or migration and address theoretical or methodological concerns related to the study of gender and security. Based on the panels we seek answers to the following questions: First, empirically, what is unique about studying security from a gender lens? Does the domain fundamentally rest on hegemonic and militarized masculinities which we cannot escape from as some scholars argue or are security institutions meanwhile undergoing change which we can observe in altered structures and processes or how actors relate to each other? Furthermore, what are the effects of international gender initiatives with respect to gender relations such as, for example, the United Nations Security Council resolutions related to women, peace and security, or the influx of new security and conflict actors? How have these relations as a result improved, been challenged, or been reinforced? Second, theoretically, what lenses and perspectives have proven themselves as the most use- and fruitful? Can we gain the most leverage from so-called “post” approaches and what is the merit of rationalist ones? How are borders between theoretical approaches (for example, between feminist security studies and feminist political economy) sustained and how can we break through them? Has the analysis of gender and security engendered and contributed to theory building or brought to the fore new theoretical perspectives? Or should we do away with theory-driven analyses altogether as they pose the risk of unwanted baggage and prevent an unencumbered look at what we have set out to study? Third, methodologically, which research tools lend themselves most to study gender and gender relations in the security realm? How useful have been methods which scholars have begun to import from disciplines such as anthropology, psychology or sociology? How do methodologies impact on how we define and research the field of ‘gender and security’? In what ways do they challenge our theoretical assumptions and conceptual frameworks? How can we decolonize knowledge practices on gender and security through the inclusion non-western thought into understandings and research of (gender) security? How do we cope with new types of data such as that of social media platforms which security actors increasingly use for both promotional or recruitment purposes and how do we study visual data from a gender perspective? What can we conclude from the increase in quantitative studies related to gender and security and what are types of methods which we should be sceptical of for ethical reasons as they may exacerbate the power relations between us as researcher and the agents we study? Rather than definite answers, we hope to promote discussion and debate related to findings and the different ways of gendering security, identify new venues for research and possibilities for collaboration. We welcome individual contributions and panels in innovative formats, from various epistemic, methodological, disciplinary, and geographical perspectives that examine security differently including imaginaries of security and gender from ‘the periphery.’