The Critique Of The Un Security Council Resolution On Women, Peace And Security
UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 on Women, Peace and Security was unanimously adopted in October 2000. For the first time the Security Council called for “increased representation of women at all decision-making levels in national, regional and international institutions and mechanisms for the prevention, management, and resolution of conflict” (UNSCR 1325; art. 1). A special focus, deepened in the following resolutions, is laid on the protection of “women and girls from gender-based violence, particularly rape and other forms of sexual abuse, and all other forms of violence in situations of armed conflict” (UNSCR 1325; art. 10). Resolution 1325 is the first out of eight resolutions making up the women, peace and security (WPS) agenda of the United Nations (1325 (2000); 1820 (2009); 1888 (2009); 1889 (2010); 1960 (2011); 2106 (2013); 2122 (2013) and 2242 (2015)). The goal of the agenda is to implement a gender mainstreaming process in all peacebuilding efforts. UNSCR 1325 is hailed as “milestone” (Willet 2010: 142) and “most remarkable institutional achievement of women’s anti-war movements to date“ (Cockburn 2007:138) by some. Others, however, consider it as an “imperial project” (Pratt 2013; Orford 2002). This essay draws on the critique of the resolution and the responses to it to examine whether the resolution represents traces of epistemic violence.
To understand what is meant by epistemic violence one has to look to French poststructuralist Michel Foucault who conceptualizes an “episteme” as “as the strategic apparatus which permits of separating out from among all the statements which are possible those that will be acceptable within, I won't say a scientific theory, but a field of scientificity, and, which it is possible to say are true or false. The episteme is the 'apparatus' which makes possible the separation, not of the true from the false, but of what may from what may not be characterized as scientific” (Foucault 1980: 197). Therefore, knowledges, which are not accepted to be “scientific” are being subjugated, excluded from the discourse. Epistemes are the structures within discourses emerge and thereby the basis for what is regarded to be “true” and what not. Foucault uses the term “episteme” to refer to specific systems of knowledge in a specific time.
Spivak builds on Foucault’s notions of the episteme and subjugated knowledge when she constructs the concept of epistemic violence (Spivak 1988: 275). She defines epistemic violence as ‘‘the construction of a self-immolating colonial subject for the glorification of the social mission of the colonizer’’ (Spivak 1988:127). The clearest example for epistemic violence is according to Spivak, “the remotely orchestrated, far-flung, and heterogeneous project to constitute the colonial subject as Other”. (Spivak, 1988: 280–281). She illustrates this example of epistemic violence with the Western impositions on Hindu laws, such as the right to perform ‘sati’. For her epistemic violence is a way of silencing marginalized groups. “General, nonspecialists,” “the illiterate peasantry,” “the tribals” and the “lowest strata of the urban subproletariat” (Spivak 1998: 282-83) become subjected to epistemic violence.
For Enrique Galván-Álvarez epistemic violence, “violence exerted against or through knowledge”, is a key essential in any process of domination. “It is not only through the construction of exploitative economic links or the control of the politico-military apparatuses that domination is accomplished, but also and, I would argue, most importantly through the construction of epistemic frameworks that legitimise and enshrine those practices of domination” (Galván-Álvarez 2010: 12). In this sense epistemic violence is not an observable event, but rather an often-unnoticed process similar, but not to be confused with, Galtung’s notion of structural violence (Galtung 1969) or Bourdieu’s symbolical violence (Bourdieu 1992). [footnoteRef:1] Epistemic violence is inherent in knowledge itself. “By epistemic violence, I understand the very contribution to violent societal conditions that is rooted in knowledge itself: in its formation, shape, set-up, and effectiveness. […] Epistemic violence is deeply embedded in our knowledge as well as in the ways on which we strive towards it” (Brunner 2015: 22). This embeddedness in the production of knowledge is what differs epistemic violence from other forms of violence. To draw this terminological assemblage together: Epistemic violence is the often-unnoticed process of subjugation in knowledge production. It is a result of unequal power relations and leads to further oppression through silencing marginalized voices. [1: Bourdieu defines symbolic violence as “the violence which is exercised upon a social agent with his or her complicity” (Bourdieu and Wacquant 2002, 167). It leads to the subordination and is therefore violent and it is symbolic because it is not an explicit act of force. Central to this notion of violence is however, that people play a role in their own submission by internalization and acceptance. Galtung distinguishes symbolic violence from personal violence. Structural violence is defined by the absence of an immediate acting subject, it is “built into structure” and manifested in inequality (Galtung 1969: 170).
A contemporary example for epistemic violence can be found in the “war on terror” as Husain and Ayotte (2015) show in their analysis of the justification for the Afghan war on terror. “Representations of the women of Afghanistan as gendered slaves in need of “saving” by the West constitute epistemic violence, the construction of a violent knowledge of the third world Other that erases women as subjects in international relations” (Husain/Ayotte 2005: 113). Afghan Women are solely presented as victims, they are not perceived as subjects. Opposing knowledges of and about Afghan women as agents are subjugated. This is only possible through the unequal power relations between the West and Afghan women and leads to further power inequality.
Nicola Pratt argues that a similar trend can be found in UNSCR 1325. According to her the resolution is supporting the discourse around the war on terror as it can be seen as a legitimization for foreign intervention to protect women’s rights. Spivak describes the relation between the imperialist subject and the subject of imperialism as “white men saving brown women from brown men” (Spivak 2010: 49). Following Pratt’s argumentation, the same could be said about Resolution 1325 as she states that the focus on sexual and gender-based violence in 1325 and the subsequent resolutions portray “brown men” as the perpetrators and ”brown women' as the victims, “re-sexing race” and thereby legitimizing protection by “white men” and at the same time silencing the voices of women in conflict zones (Pratt 2013: 18). “This reconceptualization of gender occurs”, she says “through a reinscription of racial-sexual boundaries, evocative of the political economy of imperialism” (Pratt 2013: 2).
The whole UN’s liberal peacebuilding agenda, criticizes Pratt, limits a more radical agenda of social and political transformation. UNSCR 1325 for example does not support women’s ‘resistance’ to forms of colonialism or global capitalism even though these strategies might be more empowering than participation in the 1325 agenda (Pratt and Richter-Devroe, 2011: 498).
The language and associated discourses in 1325 not only risk constrains to or the instrumentalization of women’s agency by reproducing global power structures through sexualized, gendered and racialized hierarchies but furthermore contribute to the waging of the war on terror. “In this way, Resolution 1325 is a part of the neoliberal imperium, rather than a challenge to it” (Pratt 2013: 31). Resolution 1325 would be aiming at transforming material realities rather than understanding or explaining them. She concludes that “the implications are the exclusion of the voices of those women who do not subscribe to the ‘1325 agenda,’ a backlash against women’s agency in conflict zones, and the complicity of some feminisms and feminists with the pursuit of the so-called war on terror” (Pratt 2013: 30). She argues furthermore, that the war on terror in Iraq, though legitimized in part through the alleged protection of women, made the situation for Iraqi women even worse. The invasion of Iraq has, according to her 'caused the collapse of state institutions, the disintegration of social control mechanisms, and the spread of extremist groups that target and use women” (Pratt and Richter-Devroe 2011: 614) and thereby contributed to an increase in sexual violence. Furthermore, she argues that the occupation lead to an increase in forced migration, which in combination with fragile state institutions, opened possibilities for human trafficking and sexual exploitation (Pratt and Richter-Devroe 2011: 614).
Similar to Pratt also Orford criticizes 1325 for obscuring many issues that may be important for women in conflict such as ”the relationship between insecurity and economic liberalization, or the way in which the international division of labour itself is a violent process” (Orford 2002: 281). The central mechanism for understanding conflict in Resolution 1325 is, according to her, the staging of a struggle between men and women. “Imagining a struggle in these terms strips the world of its imperial history” (Orford 2002: 282). Orford is suggesting that the issues supported by 1325 may not be the key issues women are facing in conflict in the context of globalization (Orford 2002: 282). She states that “the production or reproduction of knowledge about the real world of women is one of the ways in which some feminist international legal texts continue to be part of a tradition of imperialism” (Orford 2002: 279).
Pratt points out that the language and associated discourses in 1325 reproduce global power structures. This works through the way the concepts of “gender”, “violence” and “security” are represented in the resolution. The formulation of the resolution rests upon western production and reproduction of knowledge about these concepts. Laura Shepherd identifies 'constructions of gender that assume it largely synonymous with biological sex”, “logics of identity that characterized women as fragile, passive and in need of protection” and “constructions of security that locate the responsibility for providing that protection firmly in the hands of elite political actors in the international system” (Shepherd 2011: 506). These constructions are based on the “discursive terrain” in the institutions involved in developing the Resolution which are constituted through “time- and location-specific legal systems, cultural and socio-political traditions, geopolitical positioning and histories and so on” (Shepherd 2011: 506). The implications for policy-making are profound as “frequently unreflective and unconscious ideas that people have are being written into policy documents and are functioning to order and organize those documents – and those of whom the documents speak – in very specific ways” (Shepherd 2011: 506). It is this unconscious process of reproducing knowledge is constructing the subject other, which the resolution is aimed at, and thereby silencing it. One example of the problematic behind these constructions is the exclusion of LGBTQ people.
Although paying attention for violence against women in conflict for the first time, homophobic and transphobic violence in conflict-related environment remains invisible. Hagen argues that this neglect is due to the heteronormative and cissexist assumptions framing the WPS agenda which have an exclusionary impact (Hagen 2016: 313). She argues for the application of a queer lens to UNSCR 1325 and the whole WPS agenda because it not only brings attention to LGBTQ individuals but also to the ways in essentialist assumptions influence Security Council operations. Furthermore, it would push an intersectional understanding of sexual and gender-based violence (Hagen 2016: 331). The question arising from this is why the UN and the Security Council are not adopting a more inclusive and holistic understanding of the concepts criticized above.
One of the reasons lies in the constrains of the UN system. Gibbings (2001) argues that the speech style in the UN prevents critique that does not fit in with the underlying assumptions. Critical statements supporting specific local groups or claims criticizing the UN as imperialist would not be well received within the UN system. “The UN speech styles encourage positive visions and utopian dreams; little space exists for more critical interventions in public forums beyond these essentialized visions of gender. ” (Gibbings 2011: 534). She makes out a contradiction inherent in UNSCR1325 between the constrains of the UN system that sets the frame for action, and the idea of the “free acting subject”, “generating a hope for radical change that is always deferred to a future date, and thus it is always haunted by an impossibility” (Gibbings 2011: 535). She thus pleads for attention to be paid to the linguistic practices present in the UN system and the way certain speech styles carry less authority and become less valued than others at the UN (Gibbings 2011: 534).
One could thus argue that the constructions of ideas of gender, violence and security in UNSCR 1325 stem from a male, western, heteronormative and cissexist understanding of those terms and thereby silence voices of the people affected by the policies, namely women, queer and trans people in conflict and post-conflict situations. Gibbings’ research shows one of the reasons why it is difficult to bring about change in this matter within the UN system as it prevents criticism. Members of civil society were however critically involved in the development of Resolution 1325. On the forefront was the “Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom” (WILPF).
WILPF is an international NGO with branches in thirty-eight countries and consultative status with the UN. The basis for the resolution, Cynthia Cockburn (2007) explains, was laid at the World Conference on Women 1985 in Nairobi and 1995 in Beijing. The documents resulting from these conferences were carried on to the Commission of the Status of Women (CSW) to bring to topic of women in conflict to the center of the UN-Agenda. Out of the lobbying efforts of the CSW, WILPF and many other NGOs resulted in 2000 the NGO working group “Women, Peace and Security”, whose goal was not only to get the issue on the agenda of the UN in the form of an open discussion, they wanted a resolution on Women, Peace and Security (Cockburn 2007: 139f. ). At a meeting in preparation for the session, in the scope of the so-called “Arria-Formula” where members of the UN-Security Council consult persons which they think could contribute to the topic, the Security Council, for the first time in history, according to Cockburn, focused their attention on a woman (Cockburn 2007: 142f. ). „No such thing had been seen before in this hallowed chamber. The following week, on 31 October 2000 […] UNSC Resolution 1325 was adopted. The ‚last‘ bastion of gender-free thinking in the UN (in Felicity Hill’s words) had fallen“ (Cockburn 2007: 143).
Accounts celebrating UNSCR1325 as success of feminist activists in bringing the problem of violence against women to the attention of the Security Council however, fail to recognize the influence of the discourse on liberal peace as a security issue in this development. (Harrington 2011: 569). Without wanting to dismiss activist efforts, Harrington states that it was the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of the USA as unrivaled global hegemon that transformed the discourse on ”women” and ”human rights' as security issues in global government (Harrington 2011: 569). The USA, supported by international institutions and allies, took over the role of the democratic defender of women and children. 'Leading global institutions and self-styled democratic states have represented the problem of global security by criminalizing their military opponents as perpetrators of bodily human rights violations against innocent civilians, especially women and children. Thus, the post-Cold War agenda of women’s NGOs active in the UN system and UN women’s bureaucracies reflects these broader changes in hegemonic security discourse” (Harrington 2011: 569). These developments in the international system made it possible for feminist activists and scholars to enter the discourse on war, peace and security on a global political level. Feminist ideas and critiques though were ready developed and debated long before. The adaption of some of these ideas by global political institutions, however, was only possible through the contributions the feminist movement has been gathering for decades. Its role should thereby not be dismissed. The question arising from the critique above is nevertheless if the outcome of the resolution serves the intention of originators.
Cockburn (2007) states that the WILPF, which is clearly positioned anti-militaristic, was regretting that even though the important role of women in peacebuilding was acknowledged, the goal to prevent war as such, did not make it into the resolution. The “gender-regime” causing the discrimination of women in conflict and their exclusion from peacebuilding is not mentioned in the resolution either. It seems like the UN would be trying to make war safer for women but not to prevent it as such (Cockburn 2007: 147).
While the claims for women’s protection in war and participation in conflict resolution and peacekeeping in UNSCR1325 are quite radical in the one hand, they do not provide a contestation of fundamental assumptions of international peace and security institutions. “Protecting women in war, and insisting that they have an equal right to participation in the process and negotiations that end particular wars, both leave war itself in place” (Cohn 2008: 189). Cohn criticizes that “the global arms trade continues apace”, “international financial institutions and trade organizations continue to impose policies that foreclose the possibilities of creating a citizenry that can get what it wants without fighting”, “security” is still understood as “state security”, “investments in armaments, arms industries and private militaries are understood as an inviolate part of free enterprises”, “and the centrality of gender regimes to all of the above remains largely invisible” (Cohn 2008: 203). “Letting (some) women into decision making positions”, she argues then “seems a small price to pay for leaving the war system essentially undisturbed” (Cohn 2008: 203).
The critical arguments summarized above suggest that there are moments of epistemic violence in UNSCR 1325 despite global feminist involvement in the development of the resolution. These moments of epistemic violence manifest in the exclusionist understanding of “gender” 'security” and “violence”. This happens on the one hand through the formulation of the resolution, but, as Gibbings (2011) argues, on the other hand also through the practice of speech and rhetoric conventions in the UN system, which disvalue other accounts. Furthermore, the focus on sexual and gender-based violence and participation in peacekeeping does make other forms of violence against and oppression of women seem less important in conflict related settings, hiding (neo-)imperial hierarchies (Pratt 2013; Orford 2002). The aims of UNSCR 1325 are of course important and their adaption should not be diminished they do, however, not have any effect on global power relations. War itself is left in place (Cohn 2008: 189).
Does this mean that resolution 1325 is merely a tool to sustain western imperialism, functioning through epistemic violence? It is, of course not that simple. While finally recognizing gender-based violence in conflict and post-conflict situations as weapons of war, rather than merely a byproduct of it, as well as emphasizing the need of an increase of women’s participation in peacekeeping and conflict resolution are groundbreaking developments, the resolution can be used as a tool to maintain the prevailing world order as well. Cohn exemplifies this two-sidedness with the reference to resolution 1325 in the preamble of UN Security Council Resolution 1483 on Iraq which, according to her “can be seen as positive, in that it gives legitimacy to advocates’ demand for women’s rightful inclusion in the reconstruction and nation-building process in Iraq” but at the same time this reference could be seen as an example of 1325 “being used as a tool to justify military occupation on behalf of ‘liberating’ women” (Cohn et al. 2004: 138).
The problem of arguments deeming 1325 to be “imperialist” is that they do not give much credence to the agency of actors in the Global South. They seem to be merely passive recipients of policies developed in the West. Basu argues that the Global South was not only represented in the WILPF and the process that lead up to the resolution but also that governments in the Global South contributed and are continuing to contribute to the implementation of UNSCR 1325. They do so on the one hand through the development of National Action Plans (NAPs) adapting the resolution in their national context. These national adaptations could very well hold new ideas and insight valuable for the further development of the WPS agenda. On the other hand, uniformed personnel from the Global South has been vital for UN peacekeeping since its beginning (Basu 2016: 367).
Governments in the Global South, however, also demonstrate their agency by non-implementation or a contestation of the canonical understanding of UNSCR 1325. Countries such as Nigeria, India or Pakistan, are reluctant to implement UNSCR 1325 in the domestic context, they will however implement it in their international peacekeeping work, projecting their engagement outward. This is according to Basu, due to a reluctance to “internationalize” conflict, fearing interference from international organizations and more powerful countries (Basu 2016: 368). It is however not just governments contesting the implementation of UNSCR 1325, argues Basu, also civil society organizations (CSOs) in the Global South, often viewed as “natural advocates” of the WPS agenda demonstrate a mixed response to the resolutions. That might be due to a number of reasons such as ”limited utility of UNSCR 1325 in a given context; differences between CSOs; as well as a more fundamental opposition to the ideological moorings of the resolution”(Basu 2016: 370). Taking these contestations seriously and understanding experiences of “non-implementation” can in any case provide a more nuanced understanding of the development of UNSCR 1325 (Basu 2016: 370).
Basu does also acknowledge that while actors from the Global South too are writing and realizing the WPS agenda, “the expertise to shape the trajectory of UNSCR 1325 […] is largely associated with the Global North” (Basu 2016: 367). She does recognize that UNSCR 1325 reproduces hegemonic understandings of “gender”, “peace” and “international” (Shepherd 2008), claims however that it is vital not to diminish the agency of the Global South in the development and the implementation of 1325: “First, the Global South is not a mere recipient of policies formulated elsewhere but can claim ‘ownership’ of the WPS resolutions as well. Second, conversely, the global narrative of UNSCR 1325 must take account of divergences from the canon – understood as differing interpretations, resistances and subversions – particularly, as these manifest in the Global South, which tends to be marginalized at the international level” (Basu 2016: 363).
In conclusion it can be said however, that traces of epistemic violence can be found in UNSCR 1325 through the production and reproduction of western knowledge, manifesting in the understanding of “gender”, “security” and “violence” in the resolution, the framing of protection and participation as sole means for emancipation and the production of the “other” subject inherent in it. As an instrument of international policy however the resolution promotes normative change and can be used to advocate for security policies acknowledging gender concerns. It can never reflect all local realities, as is generally the case with international policies. A “better” WPS agenda could also not fully close the gap between the local and the international because of its nature as international policy. Changes to how “gender”, “security” and “violence” are understood in the resolution could make it more inclusive though. Devaluating UNSCR 1325 as “imperial project”, however denies the agency of actors in the Global South. Through supporting local ownership and taking account of divergent interpretations of and resistances against the resolution and the whole WPS agenda in the Global South can contribute to a more inclusive, more intersectional development of the agenda.
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