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Conditional Protection? Sex, Gender, and Discourse in UN Peacekeeping

Bibliographic Data

ID6273476
AuthorsKathleen M Jennings (OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume63
Issue1
Pages30-42
Publication date2019-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Studies Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0020-8833 • E-ISSN: 1468-2478
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/isq/sqy048
OpenAlexW2908880744
LanguageEN
Citations received24
References cited62

How do peacekeepers operating in Haiti, Liberia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) discursively construct\nthe local people, especially local women, and to what effect? I show a connection between peacekeepers’ representations\nof local people, articulated in discourse, and the gendered, often sexualized interactions and transactions in peacekeeping\nsites. Gender plays a central role in peacekeeper discourse. It situates the peacekeeper outside, and superior to, the chaotic,\ndysfunctional, feminized local. At the same time, a close reading of peacekeepers’ representations of local people disrupts\nidealized notions of peacekeeper masculinity as protective and benign, which still persist in peacekeeping circles, revealing it\nas something more vulnerable and brittle. The connection between discourse and (non)performance of peacekeeping duties\nis neither causal nor straightforward, but I argue that peacekeepers’ discursive constructions of locals affect how peacekeepers\ninterpret their mandate to protect civilians: protection becomes conditional on peacekeepers’ perceptions of locals’ appearance,\naffect, behavior, and their ability to act out an idealized role as someone “worth” protecting. The article thus brings new\ninsight to our understandings of gender, masculinities, and protection failures in peacekeeping

Affect (linguistics · Democracy · Mandate · Masculinity · Peacekeeping · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Gender Studies · Gender, Security, and Conflict · Global Security and Public Health · Law · Peacebuilding and International Security

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Unique citing works24
Citations per year3
Citation span2018 - 2026 (9)
Citation velocitycurrent
Highly citedNo
Citation typesNeutral: 24
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