Female Combatants in Conflict and Peace Challenging Gender in Violence and Post-Conflict Reintegration

Female Combatants in Conflict and Peace explores the intricacies of women's engagement in violence. It seeks to contribute to the growing body of literature on the intersection of gender, conflict and peace by specifically focusing on a particular group of women – female combatants – who pose a challenge to conventional attitudes towards the gendered relationship between violence and peace. In critically scrutinising the role of female combatants in conflict and peace, this edited volume identifies key questions: what role do women play in conflict situations, and what are their experiences of engagement with violence? Where are the female combatants positioned in post-conflict peace and reintegration processes? Through an examination of theory and practice of women's participation in violent conflicts, this insightful study makes the argument that both conflict and post-conflict situations are gender insensitive.

Dr Seema Shekhawat is associated with Peace and Conflict Studies Centre, Kathmandu. Before that, from 2005 to 2012, She worked at the Universities of Jammu and Mumbai. Her research interests include post-conflict peacebuilding and the experience of female combatants.

Introduction: Women in Conflict and Peace Making; Seema Shekhawat
1.Women in Combat: Identifying Global Trends; Carol Mann
2. Catch them Young: Participation and Roles of Girl Child Soldiers in Armed Conflicts; Shawna Carroll
3. Female Combatants, Peace Process and the Exclusion; Seema Shekhawat and Bishnu Pathak
4. Gendering Conflict Analysis: Analyzing Israeli Female Combatants' Experiences; Ayelet Harel-Shalev and Shir Daphna-Tekoah
5. Female Combatants in the Syrian Conflict, in the Fight against or with the IS and in the Peace Process; Emanuela C. Del Re
6. Visible in Conflict, Invisible in Peace: Positioning Women in the Militancy in Kashmir; Seema Shekhawat
7. Victims or Victimizers?: Naxal Women, Violence and the Re-invention of Patriarchy; Seema Shekhawat and Chayanika Saxena
8. Gendering Conflict and Peacebuilding in Sierra Leone; John Idriss Lahai
9. Women at War, War on Women: Reconciliation and Patriarchy in Peru; Camille Boutron
10. Gendered Struggle for Freedom: A Narrative Inquiry into Female Ex-Combatants in South Africa; Sofia Axelsson
11. Challenging the Boundaries: the Narratives of the Female Ex-combatants in Nepal; Swechchha Dahal
12. I Want My Wings Back to Fly in a New Sky: Stories of Ex-female LTTE Combatants in Post-war Sri Lanka; Fazeeha Azmi
13.Demobilized Women in Colombia: Embodiment, Performativity and Social Reconciliation; Priscyll Anctil Avoine and Rachel Tillman
14. Untapped Resources for Peace: A Comparative Study of Women's Organisations of Guerrilla Ex-combatants in Colombia and El Salvador; Luisa Maria Dietrich Ortega