CKR-AKS Regional Collaboration
CKR is pleased to co-sponsor this event with the generous support from the Academy of Korean Studies.
Speakers:
Ahn Kim Jeong-Ae, Women Making Peace
Radhika Balakrishnan, Rutgers University
Charlotte Bunch, Rutgers University
Krishanti Dharmaraj, Rutgers University
Rebecca O. Johnson, Sarah Lawrence College
Gwyn Kirk, International Women’s Network against Militarism
M. Brinton Lykes, Boston College
Margo Okazawa-Rey, Hamilton College
Cora Weiss, Hague Appeal for Peace
Participants of the 2015 Women’s Peace Walk in Korea
Moderator:
Suzy Kim, Rutgers University
Wednesday, March 8, 2017, 2:00 PM – 9:30 PM
Rutgers University, New Jersey
This roundtable workshop and evening conversation seeks to convene scholars, teachers, authors, activists, feminists, and peacemakers to engage in critical dialogue about women’s past contributions and future potential in achieving peace with justice.
The event celebrates March 8 as International Women’s Day by sharing examples of women’s efforts to reduce conflict and press for transformative peace with justice in multiple settings across the globe and engaging with theories on feminism, peace, post-conflict transitional justices, and social change. Specifically we hope that participants will engage in critical dialogue about specific theories and actions found in this literature and praxis as well as exploring the gaps — that is, identifying what is missing and how to move in new directions. Some of the questions we hope to address include:
-What does it mean to focus on women as peacemakers? For example, UN Security Council Resolution 1325, adopted in October 2000, affirmed the important role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts, peace negotiations, peace-building, peacekeeping, humanitarian response and in post-conflict reconstruction. It was hailed as a landmark international legal framework that addresses not only the inordinate impact of war on women, but also the pivotal role women should and could play in conflict resolution and in sustainable peace. We seek to engage in critical dialogue to explore:
- What has been achieved since the resolution was adopted in 2000?
- What are the strengths and limitations of the model underlying UNSCR 1325?
- What are the advantages and challenges of women’s reliance on and/or deployment of UNSCR 1325 in particular contexts?
- What differences have women leaders made in peacemaking?
- How does gender matter? For example, do women and men perform institutionalized power in different ways, and if so, how? Can women or men inside mainstream institutions subvert the goals of these institutions for feminist ends? If so, what are some specific examples?
-Does feminist or womanist peacemaking, peacebuilding and/or conflict resolution differ from women in peacebuilding or peacemaking or conflict resolution? Or, asked another way, what particular ideological or political visions are entailed by feminism or womanism in peacebuiding or peacemaking? How, if at all, are these visions related to or engaged with gender and/or sexualities theories and praxis? What does it mean to be inclusive of the diversities among women and their intersectional accesses to or exclusions from power?
– What are the strengths and limitations of women’s grassroots organizing and women’s leadership in electoral politics and international organizations like the UN in relation to peacebuilding or peacemaking? What kinds of connections between these multiple forms of engagement can lead to substantive change?
-What is meant by a women-centered vision of peace? What kinds of theories and praxis are embodied in or flow from such a vision?
– How does a women-centered vision of peace include working towards community level security and/or environmental justice, community-level anti-violence organizing, working with gangs in inner cities, or in sanctuary cities to protect undocumented migrants, etc.?
– What historical examples of women’s activism for peace might best inform women’s activism today? How does the marginalization or exclusion from institutions of power and decision-making lead to different forms of activism, e.g., Greenham Common, Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, Women in Black? What kinds of historically and culturally specific activities and discourses have been possible, even strategic, given certain conditions?