Dissertation Proposal Defense: Jessica M. Smith - Visualizing Voice: Framing Peace & Agency in Bosnia-Herzegovina

Dissertation Proposal Defense: Jessica M. Smith
Visualizing Voice: Framing Peace & Agency in Bosnia-Herzegovina

April 21, 2016
3pm-5pm
Metropolitan Building, Room 5145,
School for Conflict Analysis & Resolution

COMMITTEE:
Sara Cobb (chair), Drucie French Cumbie Professor, School for Conflict Analysis & Resolution
Leslie Dwyer, Associate Professor, School for Conflict Analysis & Resolution
Lynne Scott Constantine, Associate Professor, School of Art

ABSTRACT:
Scholars, international organizations, policymakers and other stakeholders have globally recognized the centrality of women to efforts for sustainable peace. However, fifteen years after the landmark United Nations Security Resolution (UNSCR) 1325, which firmly placed the issue of women, peace, and security on the international peacebuilding agenda, women remain under-represented in these processes. Although UNSCR 1325 and the subsequent Women, Peace and Security Agenda recognized the need to bring women into all aspects of peacebuilding—both formal and informal, inclusion of women in existing processes and structures for conflict transformation is not enough. It remains critically important to understand how women affected by conflict make sense of ‘participation’ in peacebuilding, and to support women in shaping the terms of their engagement such that they are able to dictate how, in which way, and when they participate. To this end, the proposed study entitled Visualizing Voice: Framing Peace & Agency in Bosnia-Herzegovina, will explore how women affected by war understand and navigate political participation in peacebuilding.

Adopting a broad understanding of “political participation” which includes engagement in both grassroots and institutional level peacebuilding practices, Visualizing Voice will employ feminist ethnographic methods to investigate women’s experiences of political subjectivity and the social and structural forces that shape how women understand and express political agency. The study will also use an artsbased inquiry process that combines narrative praxis with photovoice, to explore with women sites of struggle and sites of success, as well as their visions for conflict transformation. Through an investigation of how Bosnian women make sense of political ‘participation’, their experiences of political subjectivity, and the discursive and structural powers that shape women’s political agency, Visualizing Voice seeks to advance the field’s understanding of how to meaningfully engage women in peacebuilding processes and ultimately, to offer insight into how policy and practice could be transformed to better support women in the aftermath of conflict.