Introduction: Circuits of Power in GBVAW Governance
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Published:August 2023
Lila Abu-Lughod, Rema Hammami, Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, 2023. "Introduction: Circuits of Power in GBVAW Governance", The Cunning of Gender Violence: Geopolitics & Feminism, Lila Abu-Lughod, Rema Hammami, Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian
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This introductory chapter interrogates the dominance of violence against women (VAW) and gender-based violence (GBV) agendas within international governance and law. Feminist concerns about the gravity of gendered violence (small g) sit at the nexus of powerful global networks of institutions and practices that have recast governmentality, development, humanitarianism, and even human rights, in line with post-9/11 global security regimes. The chapter identifies four dynamic political and institutional circuits that codified GBVAW inhabits, traverses, consolidates, and animates: securitization; state sovereignty; development/humanitarian governance; and media. The studies by regional and legal experts focusing on the Middle East and South Asia reveal how religion and racialized ethnicity, particularly “the Muslim question,” run through the discourses that we identify as GBVAW. Acknowledging the concerns of diverse feminists, the chapter ends with alternatives to the role GBVAW plays in hegemonic international law and policy.