Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-gtxcr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-20T02:46:19.668Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Rethinking silence, gender, and power in insecure sites: Implications for feminist security studies in a postcolonial world

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 December 2019

Jane Parpart*
Affiliation:
University of Massachusetts, Boston
*
*Corresponding author. Email: jane.parpart@umb.edu

Abstract

My current interest in silence, gender, and power owes much to discussions with Marysia Zalewski over the years. Much of my work has focused on masculinity, gender relations, and gender hierarchies with a focus on security and development in conflict zones. More recently, I have begun to explore silence not as a sign of disempowerment, but as a powerful force that can be used in many ways. This approach enables a more multi-levelled understanding of silence and voice and their many interactions. It has much to tell the Global North, where we prize voice and often underestimate the power of silence.

Type
Forum Article
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Zalewski, Marysia and Parpart, Jane (eds), The Man Question in International Relations (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1998)Google Scholar; Parpart, Jane and Zalewski, Marysia (eds), Rethinking the Man Question (London: Zed Books, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Griffin, Penny, Parpart, Jane, and Zalewski, Marysia, ‘Men, masculinity and responsibility’, Men and Masculinities, 16:1 (2012), pp. 38CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Stern, Maria and Zalewski, Marysia, ‘Feminist fatigue(s): Reflections on feminism and familiar fables of militarization’, Review of International Studies, 35:3 (2009), pp. 611–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Zalewski, Marysia and Runyan, Anne Sisson, ‘Taking feminist violence seriously in feminist International Relations’, International Feminist Journal of Politics, 15:3 (2013), pp. 293313CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Zalewski, Marysia and Runyan, Anne Sisson, ‘“Unthinking” sexual violence in a neoliberal era of spectacular terror’, Critical Studies on Terrorism, 8:3 (2015), pp. 439–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Zalewski, Marysia, Feminist International Relations: Exquisite Corpse (London: Routledge, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Zalewski, Marysia, ‘What is the problem with the concept of military masculinities?’, Critical Military Studies, 3:2 (2017), pp. 200–05CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Zalewski, Marysia, Drummond, Paula, Prügl, Elisabeth, and Stern, Maria (eds), Sexual Violence against Men in Global Politics (New York: Routledge, 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Parpart, Jane, ‘Exploring the transformative potential of gender mainstreaming in international development institutions’, Journal of International Development, 26:3 (2014), pp. 114CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Parpart, Jane, ‘Militarized masculinities, heroes and gender inequality during and after the nationalist struggle in Zimbabwe’, NORMA: International Journal for Masculinity Studies, 10:3–4 (2015), pp. 312–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Ryan-Flood, Roisin and Gill, Rosalind (eds), Secrecy and Silence in the Research Process (London: Routledge, 2010)Google Scholar.

9 Jane Parpart, ‘Choosing silence: Rethinking voice, agency and women's empowerment’, in Ryan-Flood and Gill (eds), Secrecy and Silence in the Research Process, pp. 15–29.

10 Hansen, Lene, ‘The Little Mermaid's silent security dilemma and the absence of gender in the Copenhagen School’, Millenium, 29:2 (2000), pp. 285306CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Malhotra, Sheena and Rowe, Aimee Carillo (eds), Silence, Feminism, Power: Reflections on the Edges of Sound (London: Palgrave, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Zarkov, Dubravka, ‘The body of the other man’, in Moser, Caroline O. N. and Clark, Fiona C. (eds), Victims, Perpetrators or Actors: Gender, Armed Conflict and Political Violence (New York: Zed Books, 2001), pp. 6982Google Scholar.

13 Dingli, Sophia, ‘We need to talk about silence: Re-examining silence in International Relations theory’, European Journal of International Relations, 21:4 (2015), pp. 721–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Guillaume, Xavier, ‘How to do things with silence: Rethinking the centrality of speech to the securitization framework’, Security Dialogue, 49:1 (2018), pp. 476–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Parpart, Jane and Parashar, Swati (eds), Rethinking Silence, Voice and Agency in Contested Gendered Terrains (London: Routledge, 2019)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Agathangelou, Anna and Ling, Lily (eds), Transforming World Politics: From Empire to Multiple Worlds (London: Routledge, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kronsell, Annica, ‘Methods for studying silences’, in Ackerly, Brooke A., Stern, Maria, and True, Jacqui (eds), Feminist Methodologies for International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2006), pp. 108–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mahmood, Saba, The Politics of Piety (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005)Google Scholar; Madhok, Sumi, Phillips, Anne, and Wilson, Kalpana (eds), Gender, Agency and Coercion (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Mahmood, Saba, ‘Feminist theory, agency and the liberatory subject’, in Nouraie-Simone, Fereshteh (ed.), On Shifting Ground: Muslim Women in the Global Era (New York: The Feminist Press, 2005), pp. 111–52Google Scholar; Olsen, Tillie, Silences (New York; Delacourte Press, 1978)Google Scholar.

18 Olsen, Silences; Madhok, Phillips, and Wilson (eds), Gender, Agency and Coercion.

19 Kabeer, Naila, ‘Resources, agency and achievements’, Development and Change, 43:5 (1999), pp. 435–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 Madhok, Sumi and Rai, Shirin, ‘Agency, injury and transgressive politics in neoliberal times’, Signs, 37:3 (2012), pp. 645–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Parpart, ‘Exploring the transformative potential of gender mainstreaming’, pp. 1–14.

21 Cornwall, Andrea, Edstrom, Jerker, and Greig, Alan (eds), Men and Development: Politicizing Masculinities (London: Zed Books, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Radcliffe, Sarah, ‘Gender and postcolonialism’, in Coles, Anne, Gray, Leslie, and Momsen, Janet (eds), The Handbook of Gender and Development (London: Routledge, 2015), pp. 35-46Google Scholar.

23 Mahmood, Saba, ‘Feminist theory, embodiment, and the docile agent: Some reflections on the Egyptian Islamic revival’, Cultural Anthropology, 16:2 (2001), pp. 202–36 (p. 203)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Ibid., p. 224; Mahmood, Politics of Piety.

25 Hudson, Heidi, ‘Peacebuilding through a gender lens and the challenges of implementation in Rwanda and Cote d'Ivoire’, in Sjoberg, Laura (ed.), Gender and International Security (London: Routledge, 2010), p. 258Google Scholar.

26 Mahmood, Politics of Piety; Lee, Lin-Lee, ‘Inventing familial agency from powerlessness: Ban Zhao's lessons for women’, Western Journal of Communication, 73:1 (2009), pp. 4766CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Basso, Keith, ‘To give up on words: Silence in Western Apache culture’, Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, 26:3 (1970), pp. 213–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 Berkin, Carol and Norton, Mary Beth, Women of America (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1979)Google Scholar; Zaeske, Susan, ‘The “promiscuous audience” controversy and the emergence of the early women's rights movements’, Quarterly Journal of Speech, 81:2 (1995), pp. 191207CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 Olsen, Silences; Madhok and Rai, ‘Agency, injury’.

29 Jackson, Cecile, ‘Speech, gender and power’, Development and Change, 43:5 (2012), pp. 9991023 (p. 1000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 Acheson, Kris, ‘Silence as a gesture: Rethinking the nature of communicative silences’, Communication Theory, 18:4 (2008), pp. 535–55 (p. 536)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 Ibid.; Agathangelou and Ling, Transforming World Politics; Malhotra and Rowe, Silence, Feminism, Power.

32 Glenn, Cheryl, Unspoken: A Rhetoric of Silence (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois Press, 2004), p. 536Google Scholar.

33 Jane Parpart, ‘Choosing Silence: Rethinking Voice, Agency and Women's Empowerment’, Working Paper 297 (Center for Gender in a Global Context, Michigan State University, 2010).

34 Dubravka Zarkov, ‘Body of the other man: Sexual violence and the construction of masculinity, sexuality and ethnicity in the Croation media’, in Moser and Clark (eds), Victims, Perpetrators or Actors, pp. 69–82.

35 Palmer-Mehta, Valerie and Haliliuc, Alina, ‘The performances of silence in Christian Mungiu's 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days’, Text and Performance Quarterly, 31:2 (2011), pp. 111–29 (p. 112)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 Stone, Elena, Rising from Deep Places: Women's Lives and the Ecology of Voice and Silence (New York: Peter Lang, 2002), p. 35Google Scholar.

37 Lorde, Audrey, Sister Outsider (Toronto, Canada: Crossing Press, 1984), pp. 36–7Google Scholar.

38 Mead, Wendy Urban, The Gender of Piety: Family, Faith and Colonial Rule in Matabeleland, Zimbabwe (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2015)Google Scholar; Mahmood, Politics of Piety.

39 Picard, Max, The World of Silence (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1952), p. 19Google Scholar.

40 Wang, Youru, ‘Liberating oneself from the absolutized boundary of language: A liminological approach to the interplay of speech and silence in Chan Buddhism’, Philosophy East and West, 51:1 (2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41 Kenny, Colum, The Power of Silence: Silent Communication in Daily Life (London: Karnac Books, 2011)Google Scholar.

42 Ferguson, Kennan, ‘Silence: A politics’, Contemporary Political Theory, 2:1 (2002), pp. 1314Google Scholar.

43 Rich, Adrienne, The Dream of a Common Language: Poems: 1974–1977 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1978), p. 5Google Scholar. This position surfaced more in her poetry than her scholarly writing.

44 Glenn, Cheryl, ‘Silence: A rhetorical act for resisting discipline(s)’, Journal of Rhetoric, Culture and Politics, 22:2 (2002), pp. 261–91, pp. 262, 282Google Scholar.

45 Collins, Patricia Hill, Black Feminist Thought (London: Routledge, 1991), p. 92Google Scholar.

46 Naila Kabeer, ‘Voice, Agency and the Sounds of Silence: A Comment on Jane Parpart's Paper’, Working Paper 297 (Center for Gender in a Global Context, Michigan State University, July 2010), pp. 16–20.

47 R. Anavy, ‘Hope ends 29-year March of Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo’, San Francisco Chronicle (2 February 2006); Mellibovsky, Matilde, Circle of Death, trans. Proser, M. (Willimantic, CT: Curbstone Press, 1997)Google Scholar.

49 Cockburn, Cynthia, From Where We Stand: War, Women's Activism and Feminist Analysis (London: Zed Books, 2007), p. 51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Ahmetbeyzade, Cihan, ‘Negotiating silences in the so-called low-intensity war: The making of the Kurdish diaspora in Istanbul’, Signs, 33:1 (2007), pp. 535–55Google Scholar.

50 Jackson, ‘Speech, gender and power’; Reader, Soran, ‘The other side of agency’, Philosophy, 82:4 (2007), pp. 579604CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 Mahmood, The Politics of Piety; Mahmood, ‘Feminist theory’.

52 Tsing, Anna, In the Realm of the Diamond Queen (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993)Google Scholar.

53 Parpart, ‘Choosing Silence’, p. 1; Coulter, Chris, Bush Wives and Girl Soldiers: Women's Lives through War and Peace in Sierra Leone (Ithaca, NY, New York: Cornell University Press, 2009)Google Scholar.

54 Gatwiri, Glory Joy and Karanja, Anne Mumbi, ‘Silence as power: Women bargaining with patriarchy in Kenya’, Social Alternatives, 35:1 (2016), pp. 1314Google Scholar; Lee, ‘Inventing familial agency from powerlessness’.

55 Burnet, Jennie, Genocide Lives in Us: Women, Memory and Silence in Rwanda (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin, 2012)Google Scholar.

56 Butler, Judith, Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence (London: Verso, 2004)Google Scholar.

57 Jackson, ‘Speech, gender and power’; Agathangelou and Ling, Transforming World Politics.

58 Wagner, Roi, ‘Silence as resistance before the subject, or could the subaltern remain silent?’, Theory, Culture and Society, 29:6 (2012), pp. 99124 (p. 103)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

59 Jewkes, R. and Morrell, R., ‘Sexuality and the limits of agency among South African teenage women: Theorising femininities and their connections to HIV risk practices’, Social Science and Medicine, 74 (2012), pp. 1729–37 (p. 1729)CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

60 Lee, ‘Inventing familial agency from powerlessness’.

61 Urban-Mead, The Gender of Piety.

62 Zalewski and Sisson Runyan, ‘“Unthinking” sexual violence’.

63 Baaz, Maria Eriksson and Stern, Maria, ‘Why do soldiers rape? Masculinity, violence and sexuality in the armed forces in the Congo (DRC)’, International Studies Quarterly, 53:2 (2009), pp. 495518CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

64 Zalewski, Drummond, Prügl, and Stern (eds), Sexual Violence.