doris Buss - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by doris Buss

Research paper thumbnail of Gendering women's livelihoods in artisanal and small- scale mining: an introduction

Routledge eBooks, Jul 5, 2022

Research paper thumbnail of Crossing the line : feminist international law theory, rape and the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina

In writing this thesis, I was extremely fortunate to have two supervisors, Karin Mickelson and Su... more In writing this thesis, I was extremely fortunate to have two supervisors, Karin Mickelson and Susan Boyd, who spent innumerable hours reading and editing drafts, talking through ideas with me, providing encouragement and generally holding my hand through the rough spots. I was additionally fortunate to have the support and encouragement of my sister, Susan Buss, who was not only an important sounding board for my ideas, helped with editing and proofreading, but also put up with my thesis angst for two years. I would also like to thank the feminist coffee and discussion club who provided a supportive community and stimulating intellectual environment:

Research paper thumbnail of Gender and Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining in Central and East Africa: Barriers and Benefits

Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) on the African continent is increasingly the focus of glob... more Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) on the African continent is increasingly the focus of global, regional and national efforts aimed at regulating the sector as part of larger initiatives to increase national benefits from mining, while also addressing problems seen as linked to this form of mining such as violence and conflict. Women’s significant participation in artisanal mining (estimated at 25-50% or more of artisanal miners) is largely overlooked in these efforts. This paper draws from research still in progress from a three year, mixed-method study in six artisanal mining sites across three countries (Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda and Uganda) to explore the gendered dynamics of ASM and some of the constraints and possibilities facing women’s ASM livelihoods. Informed by scholarly analyses of artisanal mining in other African countries, and drawing on feminist political economy scholarship with its close attention to the intermingling of productive and reproduct...

Research paper thumbnail of Beyond the rituals of inclusion: The environment for women and resource governance in Africa’s artisanal and small-scale mining sector

Environmental Science & Policy, 2021

reference to the experimental data, under the so-called maximum entropy principle. Recent practic... more reference to the experimental data, under the so-called maximum entropy principle. Recent practical formulations of this approach involve simulations carried out over multiple replicas or iterative ensemble-correction procedures based on the determination of several (Lagrange) parameters. Here, we present an alternative, self-learning approach to sample molecular ensembles compatible with experimental data with the minimal possible bias on the simulation trajectories. The method does not require multiple replicas and is based on adding an adaptive bias potential during the simulation that discourages the sampling of conformations that are not consistent with the experimental measurements. To illustrate this approach, we applied this novel simulation technique to spin-labeled T4-lysozyme, targeting a set of spin-spin distance distributions measured by DEER/EPR spectroscopy. We show how the proposed method is able to efficiently sample the experimental distance distributions without altering uncorrelated degrees of freedom. We anticipate that this new simulation approach will be widely useful to obtain conformational ensembles compatible with diverse types of experimental measurements of biomolecular dynamics.

Research paper thumbnail of Gendering women’s livelihoods in artisanal and small-scale mining: an introduction

Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue canadienne des études africaines, 2020

Until recently, women were largely invisible as miners within the array of initiatives, laws and ... more Until recently, women were largely invisible as miners within the array of initiatives, laws and policies seeking to regulate mining in sub-Saharan Africa. This invisibility is beginning to change as gender and women are increasingly referenced in mining reform initiatives. In this paper, we provide an overview of extant research on gender and women's livelihoods in artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM), mostly of precious or high-value minerals, and some of the gaps that the papers assembled in this special issue address. This introductory paper also seeks to frame the special issue by questioning the forms of visibility of "women in mining" in policy and scholarly work. Knowledge claims about women and their mining work need to be emplaced within wider presumptions, power relations and political economies at various scales. Gender, we argue, provides an important analytical and methodological lens to critically consider the materialization of "women" in relation to ASM.

Research paper thumbnail of Gendered governance and socio-economic differentiation among women artisanal and small-scale miners in Central and East Africa

Third World Thematics: A TWQ Journal, 2019

Drawing on qualitative research data from two gold artisanal and small-scale mining sites (ASGM),... more Drawing on qualitative research data from two gold artisanal and small-scale mining sites (ASGM), one in Democratic Republic of the Congo, the other in Uganda, this paper explores the authority arrangements that govern mining livelihoods in these sites, tracing their gendered forms and operation. The interrelationship between these arrangements and women's mining livelihoods is considered to further explore some of the socioeconomic differentiation among women miners. In the context of increasing emphasis on formalizing the ASM sector in Sub-Saharan Africa, including through licenses and formation of associations and cooperatives, both the gendered organization of mine site governance and social differential among women miners have important implications. Formalization efforts in the ASM sector are rightly critiqued for failing to account for social differentiation that may allow elites to control licenses and associations. But also important, our research suggests, is the gendered inequalities that characterize existing authority arrangements, and the differentiation among women that may allow some women to organize and not others.

Research paper thumbnail of Knowing Women

Social & Legal Studies, 2013

This article considers how international criminal courts produce knowledge about women’s experien... more This article considers how international criminal courts produce knowledge about women’s experiences of large-scale violence. In 2001, the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia concluded that the crime of genocide had been committed in Srebrenica in 1995 and that the patriarchal nature of the Bosnian Muslim community was key to the genocide. This paper examines the processes by which the trial and appeal chambers came to know, and author an account of this community as patriarchal. I examine the transcripts of three witnesses who testified about the surviving community of Bosnian Muslim women, tracing how evidence was shaped and reshaped in the courtroom and then in the trial and appeal judgments. I argue here for the importance of exploring the mediating practices and actors that produce legal knowledge, to better understand how complex recognition of gendered harm unfolds, and is sometimes curtailed, through international criminal adjudication.

Research paper thumbnail of The (In)Visibility of Women and Mining

Routledge eBooks, Jul 5, 2022

Research paper thumbnail of ‘Dangerous desires’

Queering International Law, 2017

Research paper thumbnail of Learning our lessons? The Rwanda Tribunal record on prosecuting rape

Social Science Research Network, 2010

This chapter considers the mixed record of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in pros... more This chapter considers the mixed record of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in prosecuting sexual violence crimes. The first section of the paper outlines the Tribunal's record on sexual violence. In the next section, I examine some of the institutional failings identified by Tribunal watchers, drawing on individual cases as illustrations. I then consider in the final section how the Tribunal record on rape prosecutions can be read differently. My aim is to consider the different factors that ought to shape how the Tribunal's legacy is understood.

Research paper thumbnail of Shadow Matters

Research paper thumbnail of Sexual violence and conflict in Africa : building a research collaboration

Fostering research collaborations between African-based researchers, civil society organizations ... more Fostering research collaborations between African-based researchers, civil society organizations and policy makers is at the heart of this project. The topic of sexual violence linked to armed conflict is currently the focus of increased scholarly research and internationalized policy responses. This climate of heightened activity has underscored the need for good quality research, from multi-disciplinary and cross-sectoral research teams. This project centered on a two-day meeting in Bujumbura, Burundi, 21-23 February 2013, designed to facilitate research contacts between African-based civil society activists and researchers from universities and other institutions, and to lay the groundwork for multi-disciplinary research collaborations on the theme of economies of sexual violence. The workshop, and resulting network, has helped to stimulate new research collaborations on sexual violence and economic sectors, such as mineral extraction, and on research design and methodology issue...

Research paper thumbnail of 14. Going Global: Feminist Theory, International Law, and the Public/Private Divide

Research paper thumbnail of A Mine of One’s Own?

Women’s Economic Empowerment, 2021

Research paper thumbnail of Attending (to) class : An intersectional study of COVID-19 adaptation in Canada, Kenya and Sierra Leone Universities : Report on the Carleton University research

This pilot study examines how intersecting differences – in gender, socio-economic status, rural/... more This pilot study examines how intersecting differences – in gender, socio-economic status, rural/urban residences, and disability - shaped students’ experience of the shift to distance university education resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns in 2020-2021. Focused on three universities - Carleton University, (Ottawa, Canada), University of Nairobi, (Kenya, Mombasa campus), and University of Sierra Leone (Fourah Bay College, Freetown) - research teams based at each institution conducted surveys, interviews and focus groups with students to explore differences in students’ experience of remote learning.

Research paper thumbnail of Gendered “choices” in Sierra Leone: women in artisanal mining in Tonkolili District

Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue canadienne des études africaines, 2020

ABSTRACT This paper examines women’s “choices” in artisanal gold mining in Tonkolili District, Si... more ABSTRACT This paper examines women’s “choices” in artisanal gold mining in Tonkolili District, Sierra Leone. It argues that women’s status in Sierra Leone and their socio-economic conditions contribute to the particular economic practices within artisanal gold mining in which they are able to participate. Showing how state interventions are enmeshed in the pre-existing social relations, dependency ties and governance relations in gold mining sites, it examines how gendered norms and practices, combined with governance issues pertaining to the effectiveness of policy in advancing equality, contribute to keeping women in gendered roles and limit their empowerment and full participation in the sector. These norms and relationships largely work against women, keeping them on the margins of the artisanal gold mines even while this economic activity may provide women (and their households) with much-needed financial resources.

Research paper thumbnail of “Remember the women of Osiri”: women and gender in artisanal and small-scale mining in Migori County, Kenya

Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue canadienne des études africaines, 2020

Research paper thumbnail of Gender and artisanal and small-scale mining: implications for formalization

The Extractive Industries and Society, 2019

Research paper thumbnail of Domestic Violence and International Law. By Bonita Meyersfeld. Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2010. 368 pages

Canadian Yearbook of international Law/Annuaire canadien de droit international, 2011

Research paper thumbnail of Conflict Minerals and Sexual Violence in Central Africa: Troubling Research

Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society, 2018

Abstract:This paper explores "conflict mining-related sexual violence" as a type of con... more Abstract:This paper explores "conflict mining-related sexual violence" as a type of conflict sexual violence, tracing the dynamic process by which this category is defined in and through the production of research. Focusing on two "conflict minerals" initiatives, I explore how data on sexual violence are positioned as an indicator for assessing armed conflict and human rights abuses in mining areas in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. I trace the methodological decisions and epistemic claims that shape what is knowable about mining-related sexual violence and which erase the significant methodological challenges in researching sexual-and gender-based violence in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Research paper thumbnail of Gendering women's livelihoods in artisanal and small- scale mining: an introduction

Routledge eBooks, Jul 5, 2022

Research paper thumbnail of Crossing the line : feminist international law theory, rape and the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina

In writing this thesis, I was extremely fortunate to have two supervisors, Karin Mickelson and Su... more In writing this thesis, I was extremely fortunate to have two supervisors, Karin Mickelson and Susan Boyd, who spent innumerable hours reading and editing drafts, talking through ideas with me, providing encouragement and generally holding my hand through the rough spots. I was additionally fortunate to have the support and encouragement of my sister, Susan Buss, who was not only an important sounding board for my ideas, helped with editing and proofreading, but also put up with my thesis angst for two years. I would also like to thank the feminist coffee and discussion club who provided a supportive community and stimulating intellectual environment:

Research paper thumbnail of Gender and Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining in Central and East Africa: Barriers and Benefits

Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) on the African continent is increasingly the focus of glob... more Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) on the African continent is increasingly the focus of global, regional and national efforts aimed at regulating the sector as part of larger initiatives to increase national benefits from mining, while also addressing problems seen as linked to this form of mining such as violence and conflict. Women’s significant participation in artisanal mining (estimated at 25-50% or more of artisanal miners) is largely overlooked in these efforts. This paper draws from research still in progress from a three year, mixed-method study in six artisanal mining sites across three countries (Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda and Uganda) to explore the gendered dynamics of ASM and some of the constraints and possibilities facing women’s ASM livelihoods. Informed by scholarly analyses of artisanal mining in other African countries, and drawing on feminist political economy scholarship with its close attention to the intermingling of productive and reproduct...

Research paper thumbnail of Beyond the rituals of inclusion: The environment for women and resource governance in Africa’s artisanal and small-scale mining sector

Environmental Science & Policy, 2021

reference to the experimental data, under the so-called maximum entropy principle. Recent practic... more reference to the experimental data, under the so-called maximum entropy principle. Recent practical formulations of this approach involve simulations carried out over multiple replicas or iterative ensemble-correction procedures based on the determination of several (Lagrange) parameters. Here, we present an alternative, self-learning approach to sample molecular ensembles compatible with experimental data with the minimal possible bias on the simulation trajectories. The method does not require multiple replicas and is based on adding an adaptive bias potential during the simulation that discourages the sampling of conformations that are not consistent with the experimental measurements. To illustrate this approach, we applied this novel simulation technique to spin-labeled T4-lysozyme, targeting a set of spin-spin distance distributions measured by DEER/EPR spectroscopy. We show how the proposed method is able to efficiently sample the experimental distance distributions without altering uncorrelated degrees of freedom. We anticipate that this new simulation approach will be widely useful to obtain conformational ensembles compatible with diverse types of experimental measurements of biomolecular dynamics.

Research paper thumbnail of Gendering women’s livelihoods in artisanal and small-scale mining: an introduction

Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue canadienne des études africaines, 2020

Until recently, women were largely invisible as miners within the array of initiatives, laws and ... more Until recently, women were largely invisible as miners within the array of initiatives, laws and policies seeking to regulate mining in sub-Saharan Africa. This invisibility is beginning to change as gender and women are increasingly referenced in mining reform initiatives. In this paper, we provide an overview of extant research on gender and women's livelihoods in artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM), mostly of precious or high-value minerals, and some of the gaps that the papers assembled in this special issue address. This introductory paper also seeks to frame the special issue by questioning the forms of visibility of "women in mining" in policy and scholarly work. Knowledge claims about women and their mining work need to be emplaced within wider presumptions, power relations and political economies at various scales. Gender, we argue, provides an important analytical and methodological lens to critically consider the materialization of "women" in relation to ASM.

Research paper thumbnail of Gendered governance and socio-economic differentiation among women artisanal and small-scale miners in Central and East Africa

Third World Thematics: A TWQ Journal, 2019

Drawing on qualitative research data from two gold artisanal and small-scale mining sites (ASGM),... more Drawing on qualitative research data from two gold artisanal and small-scale mining sites (ASGM), one in Democratic Republic of the Congo, the other in Uganda, this paper explores the authority arrangements that govern mining livelihoods in these sites, tracing their gendered forms and operation. The interrelationship between these arrangements and women's mining livelihoods is considered to further explore some of the socioeconomic differentiation among women miners. In the context of increasing emphasis on formalizing the ASM sector in Sub-Saharan Africa, including through licenses and formation of associations and cooperatives, both the gendered organization of mine site governance and social differential among women miners have important implications. Formalization efforts in the ASM sector are rightly critiqued for failing to account for social differentiation that may allow elites to control licenses and associations. But also important, our research suggests, is the gendered inequalities that characterize existing authority arrangements, and the differentiation among women that may allow some women to organize and not others.

Research paper thumbnail of Knowing Women

Social & Legal Studies, 2013

This article considers how international criminal courts produce knowledge about women’s experien... more This article considers how international criminal courts produce knowledge about women’s experiences of large-scale violence. In 2001, the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia concluded that the crime of genocide had been committed in Srebrenica in 1995 and that the patriarchal nature of the Bosnian Muslim community was key to the genocide. This paper examines the processes by which the trial and appeal chambers came to know, and author an account of this community as patriarchal. I examine the transcripts of three witnesses who testified about the surviving community of Bosnian Muslim women, tracing how evidence was shaped and reshaped in the courtroom and then in the trial and appeal judgments. I argue here for the importance of exploring the mediating practices and actors that produce legal knowledge, to better understand how complex recognition of gendered harm unfolds, and is sometimes curtailed, through international criminal adjudication.

Research paper thumbnail of The (In)Visibility of Women and Mining

Routledge eBooks, Jul 5, 2022

Research paper thumbnail of ‘Dangerous desires’

Queering International Law, 2017

Research paper thumbnail of Learning our lessons? The Rwanda Tribunal record on prosecuting rape

Social Science Research Network, 2010

This chapter considers the mixed record of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in pros... more This chapter considers the mixed record of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in prosecuting sexual violence crimes. The first section of the paper outlines the Tribunal's record on sexual violence. In the next section, I examine some of the institutional failings identified by Tribunal watchers, drawing on individual cases as illustrations. I then consider in the final section how the Tribunal record on rape prosecutions can be read differently. My aim is to consider the different factors that ought to shape how the Tribunal's legacy is understood.

Research paper thumbnail of Shadow Matters

Research paper thumbnail of Sexual violence and conflict in Africa : building a research collaboration

Fostering research collaborations between African-based researchers, civil society organizations ... more Fostering research collaborations between African-based researchers, civil society organizations and policy makers is at the heart of this project. The topic of sexual violence linked to armed conflict is currently the focus of increased scholarly research and internationalized policy responses. This climate of heightened activity has underscored the need for good quality research, from multi-disciplinary and cross-sectoral research teams. This project centered on a two-day meeting in Bujumbura, Burundi, 21-23 February 2013, designed to facilitate research contacts between African-based civil society activists and researchers from universities and other institutions, and to lay the groundwork for multi-disciplinary research collaborations on the theme of economies of sexual violence. The workshop, and resulting network, has helped to stimulate new research collaborations on sexual violence and economic sectors, such as mineral extraction, and on research design and methodology issue...

Research paper thumbnail of 14. Going Global: Feminist Theory, International Law, and the Public/Private Divide

Research paper thumbnail of A Mine of One’s Own?

Women’s Economic Empowerment, 2021

Research paper thumbnail of Attending (to) class : An intersectional study of COVID-19 adaptation in Canada, Kenya and Sierra Leone Universities : Report on the Carleton University research

This pilot study examines how intersecting differences – in gender, socio-economic status, rural/... more This pilot study examines how intersecting differences – in gender, socio-economic status, rural/urban residences, and disability - shaped students’ experience of the shift to distance university education resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns in 2020-2021. Focused on three universities - Carleton University, (Ottawa, Canada), University of Nairobi, (Kenya, Mombasa campus), and University of Sierra Leone (Fourah Bay College, Freetown) - research teams based at each institution conducted surveys, interviews and focus groups with students to explore differences in students’ experience of remote learning.

Research paper thumbnail of Gendered “choices” in Sierra Leone: women in artisanal mining in Tonkolili District

Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue canadienne des études africaines, 2020

ABSTRACT This paper examines women’s “choices” in artisanal gold mining in Tonkolili District, Si... more ABSTRACT This paper examines women’s “choices” in artisanal gold mining in Tonkolili District, Sierra Leone. It argues that women’s status in Sierra Leone and their socio-economic conditions contribute to the particular economic practices within artisanal gold mining in which they are able to participate. Showing how state interventions are enmeshed in the pre-existing social relations, dependency ties and governance relations in gold mining sites, it examines how gendered norms and practices, combined with governance issues pertaining to the effectiveness of policy in advancing equality, contribute to keeping women in gendered roles and limit their empowerment and full participation in the sector. These norms and relationships largely work against women, keeping them on the margins of the artisanal gold mines even while this economic activity may provide women (and their households) with much-needed financial resources.

Research paper thumbnail of “Remember the women of Osiri”: women and gender in artisanal and small-scale mining in Migori County, Kenya

Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue canadienne des études africaines, 2020

Research paper thumbnail of Gender and artisanal and small-scale mining: implications for formalization

The Extractive Industries and Society, 2019

Research paper thumbnail of Domestic Violence and International Law. By Bonita Meyersfeld. Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2010. 368 pages

Canadian Yearbook of international Law/Annuaire canadien de droit international, 2011

Research paper thumbnail of Conflict Minerals and Sexual Violence in Central Africa: Troubling Research

Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society, 2018

Abstract:This paper explores "conflict mining-related sexual violence" as a type of con... more Abstract:This paper explores "conflict mining-related sexual violence" as a type of conflict sexual violence, tracing the dynamic process by which this category is defined in and through the production of research. Focusing on two "conflict minerals" initiatives, I explore how data on sexual violence are positioned as an indicator for assessing armed conflict and human rights abuses in mining areas in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. I trace the methodological decisions and epistemic claims that shape what is knowable about mining-related sexual violence and which erase the significant methodological challenges in researching sexual-and gender-based violence in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.