Reasoned Choice or Performative Care? Women's Transformative Peacebuilding Identities in Manipur, India
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2183897 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Karie Cross Riddle (0000-0001-6384-5009, Calvin College, Grand Rapids, MI, USA) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 20 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 54-68 |
| Publication date | 2019-01-02 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Human Development (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1464-9888 • E-ISSN: 1469-9516 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/19452829.2018.1546279 |
| OpenAlex | W2900833449 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 26 |
Countering the inevitability of communal violence, Amartya Sen defines identities as the product of individual, reasoned choice. Although he acknowledges that such choices are constrained, I argue that Sen’s position overlooks (1) the relational character of identities which reflect caring responsibility rather than autonomous choice, and (2) the power structures that constrain agents’ choices. Using original ethnographic research conducted with women’s peacebuilding groups in India in 2014 and 2015, I develop a theory of identity as performative and grounded in care. Theorizing first from women’s peacebuilding practices and then adding insights from Sara Ruddick’s care ethics and Judith Butler’s theory of performativity, I demonstrate how relationships and structures circumscribe women’s choices, leading them to transform their relational identities rather than choose them after a process of reasoning. Women peacebuilders take up socially-ascribed responsibility for others, building peace relationally as mothers and conflict-affected widows. Post-structural feminism helps us to guard against essentializing these women’s experiences as natural, instead seeing their work as deeply constrained by gender norms even as their peace work transforms those norms. My understanding of identity as relational and performative thus illuminates new sources for and new constraints upon agency
Aesthetics · Epistemology · Peacebuilding · Performative utterance · Performativity · Political economy · Social science · Sociology · Transformative learning · Gender Studies · Gender, Security, and Conflict · Peacebuilding and International Security · South Asian Studies and Conflicts
Political Theory and Feminist Social Criticism
Gender Inequality and Theories of Justice
The clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order
The Argumentative Indian
Maternal Thinking
Ethics of Global Development
Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly
Outline of a Theory of Practice
Peace and Democratic Society
The Moral Imagination
Symposium
Sara Ruddick’s Maternal Thinking as weaving epistemology for justpeace
Is the capability approach a sufficient challenge to distributive accounts of global justice
Empowerment, agency, and power
Between the Human, the Citizen and the Tribal
Development as Freedom v - V and as What Else
Durable Disorder
I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess
Black Feminist Thought
Violence, Identity and Poverty
Resources, Agency, Achievements
The Second 'Women's War' and the Emergence of Democratic Government in Manipur
The Cartesian Masculinization of Thought
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,67 |
| Citation span | 2023 - 2026 (4) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |