Third Prize: Women, Conflict and Darfur – A Case Study

Abstract

The Darfur conflict is undoubtedly the most horrific contemporary humanitarian and security disaster. Unfortunately, the field of security studies has approached this conflict within policy-making, academic and military-circles as a gender-neutral social science. However, within this conflict women have played a larger role in defining how insecurity is understood, as security actors, as academics, as military personnel and as key members of international civil society. Therefore, this paper asks the central question – does the increased role of women affect how security is understood? Do women actors change how we deal with threats to security? Are there different threats that are relevant to women in security?

This paper examines these questions by looking at ethnic conflict in Sudan through a gender-perspective. This research examines if a gendered approach to security studies changes how ethnic conflict is understood and addressed. Therefore, the paper makes several conclusions about the field of security studies. First, it argues that the field has been dominated by a top-down perspective, where structural level issues, such as geopolitical relationships, have dominated study of the Darfur conflict. Second, the paper recognizes that traditional definitions of power within the conflict have focused on material and military effect. Whereas, gendered forms of power, including sexual and structural violence, have played a large role in further subjecating the black population. Finally, it examines the role of women as security actors, in their policy, military and activist roles, showing how gendered solutions to security may be the most effective way of ending Darfur’s conflict.