Maria Martin de Almagro Iniesta | UGent (original) (raw)
Papers by Maria Martin de Almagro Iniesta
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), Apr 1, 2014
This article examines the evolution of the internal battles between activists in the transnationa... more This article examines the evolution of the internal battles between activists in the transnational campaign for the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security and subsequent resolutions from a poststructuralist perspective. Based on extensive fieldwork, the article attempts to answer the question of how international activists participating in a transnational campaign affect local women's rights campaigns in two post-conflict states: Burundi and Liberia. Or rather, why was the transnational campaign for the Resolution 1325 in Burundi considered a failure while the same campaign in Liberia was deemed a success by the international community?
Anthropologie & développement, Jul 1, 2016
with the political elite and the advocacy network on the need for an affirmative action model and... more with the political elite and the advocacy network on the need for an affirmative action model and the introduction of quotas for women in government. My increasing discomfort with that position is analyzed to provide essential epistemic insight into the politics of discourse domination, the so-called public transcript (Scott, 1990) that characterizes the wider policy field. A reflexive approach to the study of social movements is adopted to overcome the implicit judgment in literature on the subject that, in an advocacy campaign, the contester and the contested are two distinct but unified social entities with stable and congruent narratives. The intention is to provide an account of the complex dynamics of fieldwork, wherein the esea he s e otio al espo ses a easil e di e ted towards the power politics of the advocacy campaign process and, consequently, her own psycho-social world may contain precious data.
Critical studies on security, Sep 2, 2015
In Strategic Narratives, the authors ask what counts as a victory when narratives in internationa... more In Strategic Narratives, the authors ask what counts as a victory when narratives in international security clash (Miskimmon et al., 2013, 103). They look at the importance
Converging Pathways- Itinerarios Cruzados
The European Parliament awarded its prestigious Sakharov Prize in October 2016 to two Iraqi Yazid... more The European Parliament awarded its prestigious Sakharov Prize in October 2016 to two Iraqi Yazidi women who were held as sex slaves by Islamic State militias. Some months before, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued its landmark conviction of Jean-Pierre Bemba for his responsibility as commander-in-chief for sexual and gender-based violence committed by his troops in the Central African Republic. Both events are evidence of the increasing awareness at the European Union (EU), and internationally, about the need to amplify women’s experiences of violence and their claims to justice. In Guatemala, for example, a court recently convicted two former military officers for crimes against humanity for having enslaved, raped and sexually abused 11 indigenous Q’eqchi’ women at the Sepur Zarco military base during the armed conflict in Guatemala.
Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 2019
This article argues that resilience programmes in conflict-affected areas of limited statehood co... more This article argues that resilience programmes in conflict-affected areas of limited statehood could be understood as much as an effort to equip vulnerable populations with tools to mitigate the effects of poverty, discrimination, lack of opportunities and manage gender inequalities than as an opportunity for the international community to prolong their interventions, consolidate local partnerships and sustain hope. We demonstrate our argument through an examination of the implementation in post-UNMIL Liberia of the 'Spotlight Initiative', a new multi-year multi-million programme of the European Union (EU) and the United Nations (UN) focused on the complete elimination of harmful practices and violence against women.
Global Society, 2017
Recent efforts to implement the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda and the creation of Nation... more Recent efforts to implement the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda and the creation of National Action Plans (NAPs) in post-conflict countries have resulted in a set of international policy discourses and practices on gender, peace and security. Critics have challenged the WPS agenda for its focus on "adding women and stir" and its failure to be transformative. This article contributes to this debate by showing that the implementation of the WPS agenda is not only about adding women, but also about gendering in racialized, sexualised and classed ways. Drawing on poststructuralist and postcolonial feminist theory and on extensive fieldwork in post-conflict contexts in DRC, Burundi and Liberia, the paper examines the subject-position of the woman participant. I demonstrate how NAPs normalize certain subject-positions in the global South while rendering invisible and troubling others, contributing to (re)produce certain forms of normativity and hierarchy through a powerful set of policy practices. Deconstructing such processes of discursive inclusion and exclusion of troubled representations is essential as it allows for the identification of sites of contestation and offers a better understanding of the everyday needs and experiences of those the WPS agenda regulates.
Review of International Studies, 2018
This article aims to show the added value of studying transnational advocacy networks through a d... more This article aims to show the added value of studying transnational advocacy networks through a discursive approach in order to better understand the outcomes of norm diffusion in postconflict contexts. I argue that constructivist approaches to norm diffusion fall short as an explanation of norm adoption because they assume an automatic process of norm propagation through socialisation mechanisms. The first goal of the article is then to discuss how the internal dynamics of discourse negotiation in transnational advocacy networks impact the diffusion and implementation of international norms. The second goal is to propose the concept of the rebound effect and to explore the conditions under which it takes place. Through data collected during extended fieldwork, the article examines a prominent case, namely the transnational campaign for the implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security in Burundi and Liberia. I ask why and how the ca...
Recherches féministes, 2016
L’auteure s’intéresse à l’internationalisation des militantes pour les droits des femmes au Burun... more L’auteure s’intéresse à l’internationalisation des militantes pour les droits des femmes au Burundi et au Libéria depuis 2003 par l’entremise d’une analyse des parcours personnel et professionnel de quatre femmes. Son étude contribue à mettre en évidence les ressorts de l’émergence d’un large espace professionnel consacré aux activités de plaidoyer pour la mise en place de l’Agenda sur les femmes, la paix et la sécurité du Conseil de sécurité des Nations unies. Ce travail vise à préciser les facteurs qui déterminent « les moments de passage » de l’activisme bénévole à la professionnalisation et à l’internationalisation.
Gender and Race Matter: Global Perspectives on Being a Woman, 2016
Abstract Purpose The chapter seeks to examine how local women’s groups in Burundi and Liberia hav... more Abstract Purpose The chapter seeks to examine how local women’s groups in Burundi and Liberia have responded to the opportunities offered by UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security and how transnational understandings of gender security have affected the way the locals advocate for gender policies at home. Design/methodology/approach Through discussion of data collected during extended fieldwork, the chapter illustrates the internal negotiation process between the international and the local elements of the transnational campaign for the implementation of Resolution 1325. The chapter first looks at the processes of identity creation and learning that enable local activists to adapt to transnational understandings of gender security. Second, it looks at the (re)production and adaptation of those understandings in local campaigns for gender security in post-conflict 1 Burundi and Liberia. Findings The chapter demonstrates how a very particular discourse on ‘gender security’ is used and reproduced through power relations between local and transnational activists, thereby enabling certain practices and policies to become natural and the best possible option. Social implications This implies that while transnational advocacy networks help grassroots social movements to be heard at international fora, these networks also impose certain discourses and practices, contributing to a depoliticisation of the grassroots activity. Originality/value Understanding how transnational advocacy networks negotiate and transform local women’s rights discourses is all the more important since these transnational networks have been considered as moral authorities in the global political arena.
The Journal of Modern African Studies, 2016
In Liberia, women's advocacy has been crucial in bringing peace after 14 years of conflict as... more In Liberia, women's advocacy has been crucial in bringing peace after 14 years of conflict as well as in electing Africa's first female president. While the accomplishments of the women's movement have been widely praised, some authors have suggested that the once vibrant movement is crumbling. In this article we claim that one of the most important challenges for the Liberian women's movement comes precisely from its internationally proclaimed success, provoking four related outcomes: First, different women's organisations compete for the credit of the success story; second, the national government has tried to appropriate the movement and integrate it into governmental structures; third, the relationship between the movement and its international partners has evolved towards mutual disappointment due to a lack of sustainable funding and unmet expectations; and fourth, the movement seems stuck in the peacemaker label and unable to redefine itself to engage in ne...
Law & Social Inquiry, 2013
The European Court of Justice, and courts in general, were key actors in the creation of the Euro... more The European Court of Justice, and courts in general, were key actors in the creation of the European Union (EU). However, they cannot change major policy without political supporters to lobby and litigate for implementation. We argue that part of the resolution of this apparent paradox comes from complementing existing work on the activities of EU courts and litigants with a focus on a third actor: implementing bureaucracies, whose effect on law and politics has not been a focus of studies of EU legal development. Their calculations about whether to pay attention, lobby, and comply shape the impact of the law. Those calculations are variable and patterned; when and how bureaucracies listen to courts varies in predictable ways. We find evidence for this proposition in the case of EU health care services law, both in the secondary literature and in empirical studies of France and Spain.
International Journal of Iberian Studies, 2012
Spanish bureaucracy is often said to be marked by poor coordination, poor information and inabili... more Spanish bureaucracy is often said to be marked by poor coordination, poor information and inability to shape political agendas-but analyses of Spanish EU policy regularly present a list of its achievements. We focus on the 'policy bureaucracy' that monitors and acts on dossiers regardless of their political priority, using one EU policy area: health care services policy. For almost the entire EU health care debate, Spain was uncoordinated and invested little in formulating its interests or shaping agendas. Spain's policy bureaucracy fits a country that wins amendments at late stages, but does not engage early to shape policy outside its key priorities.
Critical approaches to peacebuilding have successfully pleaded for a local turn in which alienate... more Critical approaches to peacebuilding have successfully pleaded for a local turn in which alienated indigenous experiences are the cornerstone of emancipatory peacebuilding practices. However, in their quest to emancipate the 'different', they risk exercising discrimination and normalization not dissimilar to that of the liberal peace they seek to challenge. This article undertakes a feminist approach to critical peacebuilding and uses story-telling as a method in order to develop a conceptual grid that grasps the contradictions and complexities of the politics of difference. Second, the article proposes the concept of the "hybrid club" as a cluster of local and international actors that join forces to develop a series of peacebuilding initiatives. It does so via the case study of the feminist initiative Nothing Without the Women that seeks to have more women elected in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 2020
This article argues that resilience programmes in conflict-affected areas of limited statehood co... more This article argues that resilience programmes in conflict-affected areas of limited statehood could be understood as much as an effort to equip vulnerable populations with tools to mitigate the effects of poverty, discrimination, lack of opportunities and manage gender inequalities than as an opportunity for the international community to prolong their interventions, consolidate local partnerships and sustain hope. We demonstrate our argument through an examination of the implementation in post-UNMIL Liberia of the 'Spotlight Initiative', a new multi-year multimillion programme of the European Union (EU) and the United Nations (UN) focused on the complete elimination of harmful practices and violence against women.
Millennium: Journal of International Studies
Millennium: Journal of International Studies
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), Apr 1, 2014
This article examines the evolution of the internal battles between activists in the transnationa... more This article examines the evolution of the internal battles between activists in the transnational campaign for the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security and subsequent resolutions from a poststructuralist perspective. Based on extensive fieldwork, the article attempts to answer the question of how international activists participating in a transnational campaign affect local women's rights campaigns in two post-conflict states: Burundi and Liberia. Or rather, why was the transnational campaign for the Resolution 1325 in Burundi considered a failure while the same campaign in Liberia was deemed a success by the international community?
Anthropologie & développement, Jul 1, 2016
with the political elite and the advocacy network on the need for an affirmative action model and... more with the political elite and the advocacy network on the need for an affirmative action model and the introduction of quotas for women in government. My increasing discomfort with that position is analyzed to provide essential epistemic insight into the politics of discourse domination, the so-called public transcript (Scott, 1990) that characterizes the wider policy field. A reflexive approach to the study of social movements is adopted to overcome the implicit judgment in literature on the subject that, in an advocacy campaign, the contester and the contested are two distinct but unified social entities with stable and congruent narratives. The intention is to provide an account of the complex dynamics of fieldwork, wherein the esea he s e otio al espo ses a easil e di e ted towards the power politics of the advocacy campaign process and, consequently, her own psycho-social world may contain precious data.
Critical studies on security, Sep 2, 2015
In Strategic Narratives, the authors ask what counts as a victory when narratives in internationa... more In Strategic Narratives, the authors ask what counts as a victory when narratives in international security clash (Miskimmon et al., 2013, 103). They look at the importance
Converging Pathways- Itinerarios Cruzados
The European Parliament awarded its prestigious Sakharov Prize in October 2016 to two Iraqi Yazid... more The European Parliament awarded its prestigious Sakharov Prize in October 2016 to two Iraqi Yazidi women who were held as sex slaves by Islamic State militias. Some months before, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued its landmark conviction of Jean-Pierre Bemba for his responsibility as commander-in-chief for sexual and gender-based violence committed by his troops in the Central African Republic. Both events are evidence of the increasing awareness at the European Union (EU), and internationally, about the need to amplify women’s experiences of violence and their claims to justice. In Guatemala, for example, a court recently convicted two former military officers for crimes against humanity for having enslaved, raped and sexually abused 11 indigenous Q’eqchi’ women at the Sepur Zarco military base during the armed conflict in Guatemala.
Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 2019
This article argues that resilience programmes in conflict-affected areas of limited statehood co... more This article argues that resilience programmes in conflict-affected areas of limited statehood could be understood as much as an effort to equip vulnerable populations with tools to mitigate the effects of poverty, discrimination, lack of opportunities and manage gender inequalities than as an opportunity for the international community to prolong their interventions, consolidate local partnerships and sustain hope. We demonstrate our argument through an examination of the implementation in post-UNMIL Liberia of the 'Spotlight Initiative', a new multi-year multi-million programme of the European Union (EU) and the United Nations (UN) focused on the complete elimination of harmful practices and violence against women.
Global Society, 2017
Recent efforts to implement the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda and the creation of Nation... more Recent efforts to implement the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda and the creation of National Action Plans (NAPs) in post-conflict countries have resulted in a set of international policy discourses and practices on gender, peace and security. Critics have challenged the WPS agenda for its focus on "adding women and stir" and its failure to be transformative. This article contributes to this debate by showing that the implementation of the WPS agenda is not only about adding women, but also about gendering in racialized, sexualised and classed ways. Drawing on poststructuralist and postcolonial feminist theory and on extensive fieldwork in post-conflict contexts in DRC, Burundi and Liberia, the paper examines the subject-position of the woman participant. I demonstrate how NAPs normalize certain subject-positions in the global South while rendering invisible and troubling others, contributing to (re)produce certain forms of normativity and hierarchy through a powerful set of policy practices. Deconstructing such processes of discursive inclusion and exclusion of troubled representations is essential as it allows for the identification of sites of contestation and offers a better understanding of the everyday needs and experiences of those the WPS agenda regulates.
Review of International Studies, 2018
This article aims to show the added value of studying transnational advocacy networks through a d... more This article aims to show the added value of studying transnational advocacy networks through a discursive approach in order to better understand the outcomes of norm diffusion in postconflict contexts. I argue that constructivist approaches to norm diffusion fall short as an explanation of norm adoption because they assume an automatic process of norm propagation through socialisation mechanisms. The first goal of the article is then to discuss how the internal dynamics of discourse negotiation in transnational advocacy networks impact the diffusion and implementation of international norms. The second goal is to propose the concept of the rebound effect and to explore the conditions under which it takes place. Through data collected during extended fieldwork, the article examines a prominent case, namely the transnational campaign for the implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security in Burundi and Liberia. I ask why and how the ca...
Recherches féministes, 2016
L’auteure s’intéresse à l’internationalisation des militantes pour les droits des femmes au Burun... more L’auteure s’intéresse à l’internationalisation des militantes pour les droits des femmes au Burundi et au Libéria depuis 2003 par l’entremise d’une analyse des parcours personnel et professionnel de quatre femmes. Son étude contribue à mettre en évidence les ressorts de l’émergence d’un large espace professionnel consacré aux activités de plaidoyer pour la mise en place de l’Agenda sur les femmes, la paix et la sécurité du Conseil de sécurité des Nations unies. Ce travail vise à préciser les facteurs qui déterminent « les moments de passage » de l’activisme bénévole à la professionnalisation et à l’internationalisation.
Gender and Race Matter: Global Perspectives on Being a Woman, 2016
Abstract Purpose The chapter seeks to examine how local women’s groups in Burundi and Liberia hav... more Abstract Purpose The chapter seeks to examine how local women’s groups in Burundi and Liberia have responded to the opportunities offered by UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security and how transnational understandings of gender security have affected the way the locals advocate for gender policies at home. Design/methodology/approach Through discussion of data collected during extended fieldwork, the chapter illustrates the internal negotiation process between the international and the local elements of the transnational campaign for the implementation of Resolution 1325. The chapter first looks at the processes of identity creation and learning that enable local activists to adapt to transnational understandings of gender security. Second, it looks at the (re)production and adaptation of those understandings in local campaigns for gender security in post-conflict 1 Burundi and Liberia. Findings The chapter demonstrates how a very particular discourse on ‘gender security’ is used and reproduced through power relations between local and transnational activists, thereby enabling certain practices and policies to become natural and the best possible option. Social implications This implies that while transnational advocacy networks help grassroots social movements to be heard at international fora, these networks also impose certain discourses and practices, contributing to a depoliticisation of the grassroots activity. Originality/value Understanding how transnational advocacy networks negotiate and transform local women’s rights discourses is all the more important since these transnational networks have been considered as moral authorities in the global political arena.
The Journal of Modern African Studies, 2016
In Liberia, women's advocacy has been crucial in bringing peace after 14 years of conflict as... more In Liberia, women's advocacy has been crucial in bringing peace after 14 years of conflict as well as in electing Africa's first female president. While the accomplishments of the women's movement have been widely praised, some authors have suggested that the once vibrant movement is crumbling. In this article we claim that one of the most important challenges for the Liberian women's movement comes precisely from its internationally proclaimed success, provoking four related outcomes: First, different women's organisations compete for the credit of the success story; second, the national government has tried to appropriate the movement and integrate it into governmental structures; third, the relationship between the movement and its international partners has evolved towards mutual disappointment due to a lack of sustainable funding and unmet expectations; and fourth, the movement seems stuck in the peacemaker label and unable to redefine itself to engage in ne...
Law & Social Inquiry, 2013
The European Court of Justice, and courts in general, were key actors in the creation of the Euro... more The European Court of Justice, and courts in general, were key actors in the creation of the European Union (EU). However, they cannot change major policy without political supporters to lobby and litigate for implementation. We argue that part of the resolution of this apparent paradox comes from complementing existing work on the activities of EU courts and litigants with a focus on a third actor: implementing bureaucracies, whose effect on law and politics has not been a focus of studies of EU legal development. Their calculations about whether to pay attention, lobby, and comply shape the impact of the law. Those calculations are variable and patterned; when and how bureaucracies listen to courts varies in predictable ways. We find evidence for this proposition in the case of EU health care services law, both in the secondary literature and in empirical studies of France and Spain.
International Journal of Iberian Studies, 2012
Spanish bureaucracy is often said to be marked by poor coordination, poor information and inabili... more Spanish bureaucracy is often said to be marked by poor coordination, poor information and inability to shape political agendas-but analyses of Spanish EU policy regularly present a list of its achievements. We focus on the 'policy bureaucracy' that monitors and acts on dossiers regardless of their political priority, using one EU policy area: health care services policy. For almost the entire EU health care debate, Spain was uncoordinated and invested little in formulating its interests or shaping agendas. Spain's policy bureaucracy fits a country that wins amendments at late stages, but does not engage early to shape policy outside its key priorities.
Critical approaches to peacebuilding have successfully pleaded for a local turn in which alienate... more Critical approaches to peacebuilding have successfully pleaded for a local turn in which alienated indigenous experiences are the cornerstone of emancipatory peacebuilding practices. However, in their quest to emancipate the 'different', they risk exercising discrimination and normalization not dissimilar to that of the liberal peace they seek to challenge. This article undertakes a feminist approach to critical peacebuilding and uses story-telling as a method in order to develop a conceptual grid that grasps the contradictions and complexities of the politics of difference. Second, the article proposes the concept of the "hybrid club" as a cluster of local and international actors that join forces to develop a series of peacebuilding initiatives. It does so via the case study of the feminist initiative Nothing Without the Women that seeks to have more women elected in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 2020
This article argues that resilience programmes in conflict-affected areas of limited statehood co... more This article argues that resilience programmes in conflict-affected areas of limited statehood could be understood as much as an effort to equip vulnerable populations with tools to mitigate the effects of poverty, discrimination, lack of opportunities and manage gender inequalities than as an opportunity for the international community to prolong their interventions, consolidate local partnerships and sustain hope. We demonstrate our argument through an examination of the implementation in post-UNMIL Liberia of the 'Spotlight Initiative', a new multi-year multimillion programme of the European Union (EU) and the United Nations (UN) focused on the complete elimination of harmful practices and violence against women.
Millennium: Journal of International Studies
Millennium: Journal of International Studies
These are the proofs of the chapter on La professionalisation des associations locales de femmes ... more These are the proofs of the chapter on La professionalisation des associations locales de femmes dans la reconstruction post-conflict au Burundi
The chapter seeks to examine how local women’s groups in Burundi and Liberia have responded to th... more The chapter seeks to examine how local women’s groups in Burundi and Liberia have responded to the opportunities offered by UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security and how transnational understandings of gender security have affected the way the locals advocate for gender policies at home.