Discourses in Transition: Re-Imagining Women's Security

Abstract

This article employs data gathered in Lebanon, Northern Ireland and South Africa as part of a project entitled ‘Re-Imagining Women's Security and Participation in Post-Conflict Societies’. It refl ects on three different ‘imaginings’ of security–the state security discourse, the human security discourse and a gendered security approach–with the aim of showing that security discourses are currently undergoing a process of transition which parallels that taking place in post-conflict societies around the world. The article is particularly concerned to explore how a gendered security approach might empower women to re-imagine security in contextualised, bottom-up ways, and advocate social transformation within the broader processes of post-conflict transition. In order to consider women's demands for security policies and approaches in the twenty-fi rst century, the article explores the direct testimony of women in three post-conflict societies, with specifi c reference to three key areas of security central to women's re-imaginings of the concept.