Climate Fiction, Climate Theory: Decolonising Imaginations of Global Futures

The international politics of climate change invokes the imagination of various potential global futures, ranging from techno-optimist visions of ecological modernisation to apocalyptic nightmares of climate chaos. This article argues that most dominant framings of the future in climate policy imaginaries tend to be depoliticised and linear visions of universal, homogenous time, with little spatio-temporal or ecological plurality. This article aims to convince IR scholars of climate politics that Africanfuturist climate fiction novels can contribute to the decolonisation of climate politics through radically different socio-climatic imaginaries to those that dominate mainstream imaginations of climate futures. The Africanfuturist climate fiction novels of authors such as Nnedi Okorafor, Lauren Beukes and Doris Lessing imagine different spaces, temporalities, ecologies and politics. Reading them as climate theory, they offer the possibility of a more decolonised climate politics, in which issues of land and climate justice, loss and damage, extractive political economies and the racialised and gendered violence of capitalism are central.

Everyday genocide: femicide, transicide and the responsibility to protect

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to establish a conceptual connection between gender-based violence (GBV) and genocide. Victims of gendercide, such as femicide and transicide, should be eligible for protections assigned to victims of genocide, including the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). Design/methodology/approach This study examines genocide, gendercide, femicide, transicide and the R2P doctrine to formulate a platform of engagement from which to argue the alignment and congruence of genocide with gendercide. Using a content analysis of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees definition of GBV, and Article II of the Genocide Convention (GC) five “directive” facets are examined, namely, identity, physical violence, psychological violence, oppressive violence and repressive violence. Findings Expressions of physical violence, psychological violence, oppressive violence and repressive violence reflected similarity, whereas the GCs omit sex and gender as facets of identity group inclusion. The only variation is the encapsulation of identity factors included in the acts of harm. Practical implications The elevation of gendercide to the status of genocide would permit us the leverage to make it not only illegal to permit gendercide – internationally or in-country – but make it illegal not to intervene, too. Social implications Deliberate harm based on sex and gender are crimes against people because of their real or perceived group membership, and as such, should be included in genocide theory and prevention. Originality/value This study explores a new conceptual basis for addressing gendercidal violence nationally to include sex and gender victim groups typically excluded from formal parameters of inclusion and address due to limitations in Article II. The analysis of genocide alongside GBV may inform scholars and activists in the aim to end gendered violence.

Gender and Disaster: The Impact of Natural Disasters on Violence Against Women in Nepal

In April 2015, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit the Gorkha district of Nepal. This was followed in May by a second earthquake. Nepal experienced another natural disaster in 2017. Floods affected large swathes of the country from east to west. Using both qualitative and quantitative data, this article examines the impact of these climate disasters on violence against women. In doing so, it adds to a small but growing and fundamentally important body of literature that explores the intersections of gendered violence and natural disaster. It is well-established that 35% of women worldwide have experienced physical and/or sexual violence. What we know much less about is how other events impact on these figures. Given the growing intensity of climate change and the reality that adverse impacts are here to stay, understanding the detrimental legacy of natural disasters is now more urgent than ever.

Putting gender on the agenda in Rio de Janeiro

Considerable scholarly attention has been devoted to the investigation of language and gendered performances in the workplace, particularly in the Global North. However, as yet few studies have examined such dynamics in the context of contemporary social movements. Drawing on (auto)ethnographic observations and audio recordings, this article takes a critical look at the negotiation of meaning in public debates held by bicycle advocates in Rio de Janeiro. The gendered performances which arise from small stories suggest that female participants find themselves in a ‘double bind’ as they seek to raise awareness of the gendered violence they experience whilst simultaneously adhering to the discursive norms of the movement. Such performances may be understood as characteristic of a postfeminist sensibility in which everyday violence is mitigated in order to project a courageous, resilient subject undeterred by such threats.

DoorWOmen & Gendering the Door: An Explorative Study of Women's Experiences of the Bouncer Occupation within New Zealand's Night-Time Economy.

<p>Patriarchal norms and misogynistic attitudes often result in women’s exclusion from positions of power in institutional structures through the use of sexual harassment, discriminatory recruitment methods and exclusion from social circles. Traditionally, previous research on bouncers has focused on the occupation’s close affinities with violence and the domination of men, ignoring the benefits and experiences of women in door-work. This research addresses an important literature gap within the context of New Zealand, by exploring how women working as bouncers in New Zealand’s Night Time Economy (NTE) experience and navigate their occupations, based on stereotypical assumptions that women are unsuitable to bouncing. Applying a feminist lens, this qualitative study employed semi-structured interviews with twelve women who had experience working as bouncers in New Zealand’s NTE. This study found that gendered violence, discrimination and misogyny were a routine and ‘expected’ part of being a female bouncer, and uncovered how the women in this study constructed malleable performances of gender to do their work. These experiences profoundly impacted their feelings of safety in the workplace, which may point to reasons why women still remain the minority within the bouncer occupation. Based on these findings, this research concludes that women in door-work are faced with a paradox where femininity is simultaneously resisted in a masculine occupation, but where they are expected to adhere to men’s expectations of appropriate gender norms within the workplace. This study therefore exposes the difficult and highly gendered terrain women in door-work are expected to navigate, and emphasises the need to address misogynistic attitudes and gendered violence within the workplace, the wider NTE and beyond.</p>

DoorWOmen & Gendering the Door: An Explorative Study of Women's Experiences of the Bouncer Occupation within New Zealand's Night-Time Economy.

<p>Patriarchal norms and misogynistic attitudes often result in women’s exclusion from positions of power in institutional structures through the use of sexual harassment, discriminatory recruitment methods and exclusion from social circles. Traditionally, previous research on bouncers has focused on the occupation’s close affinities with violence and the domination of men, ignoring the benefits and experiences of women in door-work. This research addresses an important literature gap within the context of New Zealand, by exploring how women working as bouncers in New Zealand’s Night Time Economy (NTE) experience and navigate their occupations, based on stereotypical assumptions that women are unsuitable to bouncing. Applying a feminist lens, this qualitative study employed semi-structured interviews with twelve women who had experience working as bouncers in New Zealand’s NTE. This study found that gendered violence, discrimination and misogyny were a routine and ‘expected’ part of being a female bouncer, and uncovered how the women in this study constructed malleable performances of gender to do their work. These experiences profoundly impacted their feelings of safety in the workplace, which may point to reasons why women still remain the minority within the bouncer occupation. Based on these findings, this research concludes that women in door-work are faced with a paradox where femininity is simultaneously resisted in a masculine occupation, but where they are expected to adhere to men’s expectations of appropriate gender norms within the workplace. This study therefore exposes the difficult and highly gendered terrain women in door-work are expected to navigate, and emphasises the need to address misogynistic attitudes and gendered violence within the workplace, the wider NTE and beyond.</p>

Family and Community Dynamics That Contribute to Female Involvement in Terrorist Activity in Nigeria

Since 2013, Boko Haram has significantly contributed to gendered violence against women. This study examines the experiences of 16 women and girls who lived in the Boko Haram camp from 2014-2018 and had varying levels of engagement in the organization's activities. The study employs a qualitative phenomenological in-depth interview methodology. Semi-structured interviews conducted in Nigeria yielded data on the respondents' experiences before, during, and after their times with Boko Haram. Based on the analysis of interview responses and field notes, several themes emerged. Overall findings suggest that family and community dynamics play a significant role in terrorism in Nigeria. More specifically, early child marriage and the lack of access to education increase girls' vulnerability to abductions by Boko Haram, which, in turn, contributes to involvement in terrorism. Boko Haram members take control over the most disadvantaged and vulnerable victims and, through direct threats or non-consensual marriage, force these women to succumb to their pressure. Respondents reported facing barriers to reintegration into the community, although those with more formal education tended to fare better. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for future research and counter-terrorism efforts in Nigeria.

Zabel Yesayan, “Chronicle – The Role of the Armenian Woman during the War”

The following is a translation of a lecture delivered in French by Zabel Yesayan at the Engineers Hall on 17 January 1920. The talk was originally published, seemingly without much editing, in the French Revue des études arméniennes 2 (1922): 121–138. The lyricism of this nationalist panegyric and ode to the Armenian woman exposes the author’s raw emotions, as she describes the exodus of Armenians from their homeland during World War I, their struggle, their resilience, and the crimes committed against them. Zabel Yesayan’s speech is altogether révolté – in the sense of moral and political indignation – and righteous. It also reveals with poignant and at times excruciating details, the gendered violence that conventional political narratives often silence about women, especially during genocide. The page numbers referenced below in brackets correspond to the page numbers in the Revue des études arméniennes publication. I have maintained as much as possible the orality of this speech, delivered in florid, melodramatic, nineteenth-century oratory style. I have, however, added punctuation when the lack thereof led to confusion or unintelligibility.

Temporary Migration and Family Violence: How Perpetrators Weaponise Borders

This paper explores the implications of domestic and family violence occurring across borders, specifically the utilisation of border crossings to exert control and enact violence. While gendered violence can and does occur in border-crossing journeys, this paper focuses more specifically on how domestic and family violence extends across national borders and how violence (or the threat of violence and deportation) can manifest across multiple countries when women are temporary visa holders. This paper illuminates the way in which migration systems play a significant role in temporary migrant experiences of domestic and family violence. Drawing on a study of 300 temporary migrants and their experiences of domestic and family violence, I argue that perpetrators effectively weaponise the migration system to threaten, coerce and control women in different ways, most often with impunity. I also argue that we cannot focus on perpetrators and the individual alone—that we need to build on the border criminology scholarship that highlights the need to focus on systemic harm in the context of domestic and family violence and identify how the migration regime contributes to gendered violence.

Gendered Violence and Neoliberal Desaparecidos in Luis Cano’s Socavón

This article situates Socavón (1999), a monologue by leading Argentine playwright Luis Cano, in terms of former Argentine President Carlos Menem’s (1989–99) economic policies in post-dictatorship Argentina, demonstrating how neoliberalism can be understood through the gendered shame and violence it produces. Shunted aside in Buenos Aires and haunted by its legions of desaparecidos, protagonist Ulisito desperately seeks throughout Socavón to regain his masculinity – as well as his personhood and his visibility – through aggression. I argue that Ulisito’s violence is a form of civil resistance, a reaction against a dehumanizing economic regime, as well as a critique of unresolved human rights issues haunting democratic Argentina. Cano draws on numerous dramatic and literary antecedents, including a play that is foundational to dramatic modernity, Georg Büchner’s Woyzeck, as blueprints for a contemporary crisis. Socavón suggests that unless a more equitable society is created, women in particular will continue to be the victims of a collapsed masculinity trying to reassert itself.