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Female Combatants and Peacebuilding

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Despite the pain, loss, and suffering that accompanies armed conflicts, and of course notwithstanding the stigmatized and gendered barriers to their participation as combatants, it is undeniable that women’s involvement in political violence represents a way for many to exercise agency which under “normal circumstances” they could not. They therefore emerge from the aftermath of war not only as politicized and mobilized activists but also as persons who previously held positions of leadership and responsibility, representing a key but often neglected source of peacebuilding capital. Despite the centrality and importance of their postwar activism in the pursuit of peace, particularly within their own communities, combatant women constitute a group of peacebuilders that are consistently marginalized, overlooked, and undervalued. Drawing upon theoretical and empirical works, this entry highlights several important issues. Firstly, that peace processes are as gendered as wars....

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Applied Social and Policy Sciences, Ulster University, Newtownabbey, UK

    Niall Gilmartin

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  1. Niall Gilmartin
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Correspondence to Niall Gilmartin .

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  1. Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, UK

    Maria-Adriana Deiana

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Gilmartin, N. (2020). Female Combatants and Peacebuilding. In: The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Peace and Conflict Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11795-5_93-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11795-5_93-1

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-11795-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-11795-5

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