Bina D’costa
Biographic Data
| ID | 1677079 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Bina D’costa |
| GIVEN NAMES | Bina |
| FAMILY NAME | D’costa |
| SIGNATURE | D’COSTA B |
| AFFILIATIONS | Australian National University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3698-9378 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 19 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
How stateless Rohingya women and children are navigating vulnerability in Thailand and Malaysia
Rohingya women and children who are stateless live in constant fear of immigration detention in Thailand and Malaysia, amid many other threats and challenges. This article examines their situation as a continuum of vulnerability and explores how Rohingya women exert agency where possible
Violence, vulnerability and protection on the move
Reflections from scholars and practitioners on violence and extreme vulnerability linked to forced displacement in humanitarian contexts has inspired this article. It challenges conventional perspectives on displacement, interrogating impacts against a shifting geopolitical and humanitarian landscape. Informed by critical feminist pedagogies, particularly those grounded in Global South approaches and combining collaborative and critical modes of …
Displacement of children in humanitarian emergencies
Tigray’s Complex Emergency, Expulsions and the Aspirations of the Responsibility to Protect
This article observes that with the intensification of humanitarian crisis in Tigray and the Horn of Africa region, an important question re-emerges: how could the international community, in cooperation with national and local actors, provide protection to vulnerable civilian populations against state repression? How could this be even possible when international practitioners face the threat of expulsions and the local human rights groups face …
Learning/unlearning in International Relations through the politics of margins and silence
As an auto-ethnography, this essay offers my learning and teaching in International Relations through the politics of margins and silences. I note that recentering margins and unpacking multiple silences are not so simple. They generate their own discomforts and unlearning. Through my academic encounters of forging feminist relationships, debating race and racism, and efforts to decolonise knowledge in academia, I observe that these are compounde…
Where exactly am I sitting at that table? Race, Prejudice, and Perpetual (In)security in Global Politics
Who hasn’t heard about women must sit at the table? In this sense, the table is a place of influence and power. Critical IR, particularly those focussing on women’s participation in peace negotiations, in security discourses, and advocacy campaigns emphasise women must have a seat at the table to contribute to meaningful change. In this piece, I reflect on my everyday experiences of (in)security in teaching and practising security. I argue that s…
Of Responsibilities, Protection, and Rights
The endorsement of R 2 P by the unga and the unsc does not give the doctrine legal status, however, such broad acceptance in the international community gives the concept some normative force. Although the unga formulation of R 2 P can be considered to be the most authoritative, as demonstrated by the articles in this special issue, the doctrine could be further advanced in relation to children in conflict zones. This article provides some reflec…
Learning to be a compassionate academic
Do you, my dear reader, feel emotionally exhausted when you skim through the headlines of your morning newspaper? If you are more of a social media person, do you have an overwhelming urge to overlook the depressing stories? Are you suffering from compassion fatigue? \n \nDue to the nature of my research I deal with material that includes accounts of often-extreme violence. Our social world is also replete with awful, awful stories. I am, and to …
Anticipating the Struggle against Everyday Impunity in Myanmar through Accounts from Bangladesh and Thailand
Work done internationally to address impunity concentrates on removing blanket amnesties and establishing commissions of inquiry into past atrocities. Everyday impunity—the impossibility of bringing state officers to account for routinized violent crimes against other individuals—gets less attention, even though its effects on public life are insidious. Studying the 2014 killing of a journalist, we identify modes for the production of everyday im…
Gender Justice and (In)security in Pakistan and Afghanistan
This article argues that gender justice becomes a politicised issue in counterproductive ways in conflict zones. Despite claims of following democratic principles, cultural norms have often taken precedence over ensuring gender-sensitive security practices on the ground. The rightness of the ‘war on terror’ justified by evoking fear and enforced through colonial methods of surveillance, torture, and repression in counter-terrorism measures, repro…
Children and Global Conflict
Over one billion people under the age of eighteen live in territories affected by armed conflict. Despite this, scholars and practitioners often lack a comprehensive knowledge of how children both struggle within and shape conflict zones. Children and Global Conflict provides this understanding with a view to enhancing the prospects of conflict resolution and peacebuilding. This book presents key ideas and issues relating to children's experience…
Of Impunity, Scandals and Contempt
Once were warriors
Military memoirs often seek to reproduce an authoritative understanding of warfare that delineate important strategies of the frontline. The soldier-narrator invokes a shared sympathy between the different, though connected, worlds of the soldiers and the civilians. This essay proposes that the complex processes of racial and gender identification experienced by the colonized resulted in the production of their own discourses about identity, and …
The Politics of Voice
Forum: The State of Feminist Security Studies: Continuing the Conversation. This forum comprises seven pieces conceived in response to the recent Politics & Gender Critical Perspectives section that featured contributions from Carol Cohn, Valerie Hudson
Bangladesh in 2011
Bangladesh has achieved some impressive social and developmental goals in its health and education sectors. It has also effectively dealt with the adversities caused by the downturn of the global economy, and focused on strengthening its military capabilities to protect its national interests. However, environmental issues, growing international scrutiny about a fair war crimes trial, human rights concerns, the India-Bangladesh border, and transi…
Women, War, and the Making of Bangladesh
The year of 1971 became a signifying marker transforming the political dynamics of South Asia. Forty years on, the International Crimes Tribunal, set up for the purposes of prosecuting Bangladeshi citizens who have allegedly committed war crimes during 1971, has started its proceedings.1 While the Tribunal has generated much international interest and also criticism, the thin scholarship on the conflict is gradually increasing, ranging from innov…
Bangladesh in 2010
Bangladesh in 2010 experienced a unique period in its domestic politics, and a boost in its bilateral and regional relationships. However, a fragile political system, poor human rights record, trade imbalances, and climate change vulnerabilities continued throughout the year and contributed to the everyday insecurities of the population
The Politics of Voice
Forum: The State of Feminist Security Studies: Continuing the Conversation. This forum comprises seven pieces conceived in response to the recent Politics & Gender Critical Perspectives section that featured contributions from Carol Cohn, Valerie Hudson
Where exactly am I sitting at that table? Race, Prejudice, and Perpetual (In)security in Global Politics
Who hasn’t heard about women must sit at the table? In this sense, the table is a place of influence and power. Critical IR, particularly those focussing on women’s participation in peace negotiations, in security discourses, and advocacy campaigns emphasise women must have a seat at the table to contribute to meaningful change. In this piece, I reflect on my everyday experiences of (in)security in teaching and practising security. I argue that s…
Learning/unlearning in International Relations through the politics of margins and silence
As an auto-ethnography, this essay offers my learning and teaching in International Relations through the politics of margins and silences. I note that recentering margins and unpacking multiple silences are not so simple. They generate their own discomforts and unlearning. Through my academic encounters of forging feminist relationships, debating race and racism, and efforts to decolonise knowledge in academia, I observe that these are compounde…
Tigray’s Complex Emergency, Expulsions and the Aspirations of the Responsibility to Protect
This article observes that with the intensification of humanitarian crisis in Tigray and the Horn of Africa region, an important question re-emerges: how could the international community, in cooperation with national and local actors, provide protection to vulnerable civilian populations against state repression? How could this be even possible when international practitioners face the threat of expulsions and the local human rights groups face …
Anticipating the Struggle against Everyday Impunity in Myanmar through Accounts from Bangladesh and Thailand
Work done internationally to address impunity concentrates on removing blanket amnesties and establishing commissions of inquiry into past atrocities. Everyday impunity—the impossibility of bringing state officers to account for routinized violent crimes against other individuals—gets less attention, even though its effects on public life are insidious. Studying the 2014 killing of a journalist, we identify modes for the production of everyday im…
Of Impunity, Scandals and Contempt
Bangladesh in 2011
Bangladesh has achieved some impressive social and developmental goals in its health and education sectors. It has also effectively dealt with the adversities caused by the downturn of the global economy, and focused on strengthening its military capabilities to protect its national interests. However, environmental issues, growing international scrutiny about a fair war crimes trial, human rights concerns, the India-Bangladesh border, and transi…
Bangladesh in 2010
Bangladesh in 2010 experienced a unique period in its domestic politics, and a boost in its bilateral and regional relationships. However, a fragile political system, poor human rights record, trade imbalances, and climate change vulnerabilities continued throughout the year and contributed to the everyday insecurities of the population
Bangladesh in 2011
Bangladesh has achieved some impressive social and developmental goals in its health and education sectors. It has also effectively dealt with the adversities caused by the downturn of the global economy, and focused on strengthening its military capabilities to protect its national interests. However, environmental issues, growing international scrutiny about a fair war crimes trial, human rights concerns, the India-Bangladesh border, and transi…
Women, War, and the Making of Bangladesh
The year of 1971 became a signifying marker transforming the political dynamics of South Asia. Forty years on, the International Crimes Tribunal, set up for the purposes of prosecuting Bangladeshi citizens who have allegedly committed war crimes during 1971, has started its proceedings.1 While the Tribunal has generated much international interest and also criticism, the thin scholarship on the conflict is gradually increasing, ranging from innov…
The Politics of Voice
Forum: The State of Feminist Security Studies: Continuing the Conversation. This forum comprises seven pieces conceived in response to the recent Politics & Gender Critical Perspectives section that featured contributions from Carol Cohn, Valerie Hudson
Once were warriors
Military memoirs often seek to reproduce an authoritative understanding of warfare that delineate important strategies of the frontline. The soldier-narrator invokes a shared sympathy between the different, though connected, worlds of the soldiers and the civilians. This essay proposes that the complex processes of racial and gender identification experienced by the colonized resulted in the production of their own discourses about identity, and …
Children and Global Conflict
Over one billion people under the age of eighteen live in territories affected by armed conflict. Despite this, scholars and practitioners often lack a comprehensive knowledge of how children both struggle within and shape conflict zones. Children and Global Conflict provides this understanding with a view to enhancing the prospects of conflict resolution and peacebuilding. This book presents key ideas and issues relating to children's experience…
Of Impunity, Scandals and Contempt
Learning to be a compassionate academic
Do you, my dear reader, feel emotionally exhausted when you skim through the headlines of your morning newspaper? If you are more of a social media person, do you have an overwhelming urge to overlook the depressing stories? Are you suffering from compassion fatigue? \n \nDue to the nature of my research I deal with material that includes accounts of often-extreme violence. Our social world is also replete with awful, awful stories. I am, and to …
Anticipating the Struggle against Everyday Impunity in Myanmar through Accounts from Bangladesh and Thailand
Work done internationally to address impunity concentrates on removing blanket amnesties and establishing commissions of inquiry into past atrocities. Everyday impunity—the impossibility of bringing state officers to account for routinized violent crimes against other individuals—gets less attention, even though its effects on public life are insidious. Studying the 2014 killing of a journalist, we identify modes for the production of everyday im…
Gender Justice and (In)security in Pakistan and Afghanistan
This article argues that gender justice becomes a politicised issue in counterproductive ways in conflict zones. Despite claims of following democratic principles, cultural norms have often taken precedence over ensuring gender-sensitive security practices on the ground. The rightness of the ‘war on terror’ justified by evoking fear and enforced through colonial methods of surveillance, torture, and repression in counter-terrorism measures, repro…
Of Responsibilities, Protection, and Rights
The endorsement of R 2 P by the unga and the unsc does not give the doctrine legal status, however, such broad acceptance in the international community gives the concept some normative force. Although the unga formulation of R 2 P can be considered to be the most authoritative, as demonstrated by the articles in this special issue, the doctrine could be further advanced in relation to children in conflict zones. This article provides some reflec…
Learning/unlearning in International Relations through the politics of margins and silence
As an auto-ethnography, this essay offers my learning and teaching in International Relations through the politics of margins and silences. I note that recentering margins and unpacking multiple silences are not so simple. They generate their own discomforts and unlearning. Through my academic encounters of forging feminist relationships, debating race and racism, and efforts to decolonise knowledge in academia, I observe that these are compounde…
Where exactly am I sitting at that table? Race, Prejudice, and Perpetual (In)security in Global Politics
Who hasn’t heard about women must sit at the table? In this sense, the table is a place of influence and power. Critical IR, particularly those focussing on women’s participation in peace negotiations, in security discourses, and advocacy campaigns emphasise women must have a seat at the table to contribute to meaningful change. In this piece, I reflect on my everyday experiences of (in)security in teaching and practising security. I argue that s…
Tigray’s Complex Emergency, Expulsions and the Aspirations of the Responsibility to Protect
This article observes that with the intensification of humanitarian crisis in Tigray and the Horn of Africa region, an important question re-emerges: how could the international community, in cooperation with national and local actors, provide protection to vulnerable civilian populations against state repression? How could this be even possible when international practitioners face the threat of expulsions and the local human rights groups face …
Displacement of children in humanitarian emergencies
How stateless Rohingya women and children are navigating vulnerability in Thailand and Malaysia
Rohingya women and children who are stateless live in constant fear of immigration detention in Thailand and Malaysia, amid many other threats and challenges. This article examines their situation as a continuum of vulnerability and explores how Rohingya women exert agency where possible
Violence, vulnerability and protection on the move
Reflections from scholars and practitioners on violence and extreme vulnerability linked to forced displacement in humanitarian contexts has inspired this article. It challenges conventional perspectives on displacement, interrogating impacts against a shifting geopolitical and humanitarian landscape. Informed by critical feminist pedagogies, particularly those grounded in Global South approaches and combining collaborative and critical modes of …
Political science (15 works) · Law (12 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Law (9 works) · Politics (9 works) · Human rights (6 works) · Criminology (5 works) · Gender Studies (5 works) · Gender, Security, and Conflict (4 works) · Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography (3 works)