“Our struggle, our cry, our sweat”: challenging the gendered logics of participation and conflict transition in Solomon Islands

Abstract

ABSTRACT While women’s contributions to peacebuilding and conflict mediation are currently viewed as central to the durability of peace, women peace leaders still face constraints in their work toward a peace that is gender-just. In this article, we reflect on the gendered rules that structure the conflict transition environment in Solomon Islands, a context that is shaped by interactions between internationally driven liberal peacebuilding and local influences. Building on insights from feminist institutional analysis, we describe this environment as a complex ecology of gendered rule making in which constraints to women’s participation are formidable. Nonetheless, we are motivated to investigate whether closer attention to Indigenous deliberative institutions in this context, and perhaps in others, might offer possibilities for navigating these constraints. Our research suggests that if due consideration is given to these institutions, the political weight of women’s stories of “struggle,” “cries,” and “sweat” might drive change more effectively, making the objectives of durable and gender-just peace more attainable for those in conflict-affected societies.