Towards Inclusive Gender in Transitional Justice: Gaps, Blind-Spots and Opportunities

Philipp Schulz

doi:10.1080/17502977.2019.1663984

Abstract

ABSTRACT While gender perspectives have become a burgeoning focus of analysis in transitional justice, the dominant conceptualization of 'gender' in such processes is effectively an exclusive one. As a result, careful consideration for the roles of masculinities and for the experiences of sexual and gender minorities remains strikingly absent. To engage with these blind-spots, in this article I initiate a move towards a more inclusive understanding of gender in transitional justice, which includes masculinities and queer perspectives. I also indicate how a move from the macro- to the micro-level of TJ implies opportunities and challenges for more inclusive understandings of gender.

Highlights

In this paper, I put forward a more inclusive understanding of gender in the context of transitional justice, that is attentive to numerous gendered blind-spots and that includes attention to women’s, men’s and sexual and gender minorities’ conflict-related harms and experiences
A little over a decade since Bell and O'Rourke's (2007) call for feminist TJ theorizing, 'gender parity remains elusive in transitional justice implementation' (Ní Aolaín 2016: 1)
While numerous gender blind-spots persist, various gendered experiences remain unaccounted for, and existing TJ processes have largely fallen short in advancing transformations for women

Summary

Introduction

I put forward a more inclusive understanding of gender in the context of transitional justice, that is attentive to numerous gendered blind-spots and that includes attention to women’s, men’s and sexual and gender minorities’ conflict-related harms and experiences. By bringing different critical approaches to gender in TJ into conversation, this article begins to contribute towards a more inclusive and holistic understanding of gender in transitional spaces, which both challenges as well as contributes to current approaches and practices, thereby moving forward the field, study and implementation of post-conflict processes of dealing with the past To this end, in this article I outline my proposal for how inclusive gender in TJ can look like: First, this requires a masculinities lens (Hamber 2016), by paying attention to how men's gendered conflictrelated experiences can be engaged with in transitional spaces. This would facilitate a more inclusive understanding of gender that pays attention to the experiences and harms of women, men and those outside binary hetero-normative frameworks To put these conceptual considerations into praxis, I argue that a shift from the macro- to the micro-level implies opportunities to circumvent some of the hetero-patriarchal blind-spots of topdown TJ measures, and to open up space for more creative and inclusive engagements with gender in post-conflict processes, including the incorporation of masculinities and/or queer perspectives. These previous research experiences enabled me to engage with sexual violence survivors affected by different post-conflict processes directly and in an inclusive manner, and to immediately capture their conceptions of justice, broadly through frames of gendered vulnerabilities

Integrating a Masculinities Lens in Transitional Justice

Beyond the Gender Binary

Findings

Conclusion