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Publications (10 of 68) Show all publications
Cardeño, C. E., Olivius, E. & Åkebo, M. (2025). 'Jihad is Planted in Our Hearts': International Aid, Rebel Institutions and Women's Participation in the Bangsamoro. Civil Wars, 27(1), 42-69
Open this publication in new window or tab >>'Jihad is Planted in Our Hearts': International Aid, Rebel Institutions and Women's Participation in the Bangsamoro
2025 (English)In: Civil Wars, ISSN 1369-8249, E-ISSN 1743-968X, Vol. 27, no 1, p. 42-69Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

This article explores the encounter between the Women, Peace and Security agenda and rebel institutions in Mindanao. The analysis highlights that activities aiming to support women’s participation in peacebuilding often exist in parallel with and fail to fully recognise women’s existing forms of mobilisation within Non-State Armed Groups. This gap is bridged by civil society brokers who are associated with armed groups but speak the language of international peacebuilding frameworks. The findings point to the important role of such intermediaries in translating international norms, and to rebel groups and institutions as arenas for women’s political mobilisation and empowerment.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Routledge, 2025
National Category
Peace and Conflict Studies Other Social Sciences not elsewhere specified Political Science (excluding Public Administration Studies and Globalisation Studies)
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-212485 (URN)10.1080/13698249.2023.2230824 (DOI)001032180700001 ()2-s2.0-85165550305 (Scopus ID)
Available from: 2023-08-01 Created: 2023-08-01 Last updated: 2025-05-28Bibliographically approved
Hedström, J. & Olivius, E. (2025). Knowing violence: human rights documentation, narrative agency and resistance in myanmar. In: Annika Björkdahl; Johanna Mannergren (Ed.), The production of gendered knowledge of war: women and epistemic power (pp. 60-73). Routledge
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Knowing violence: human rights documentation, narrative agency and resistance in myanmar
2025 (English)In: The production of gendered knowledge of war: women and epistemic power / [ed] Annika Björkdahl; Johanna Mannergren, Routledge, 2025, p. 60-73Chapter in book (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

For decades, women in and from Myanmar have engaged in documentation of human rights abuses by the Myanmar military, report writing and international advocacy campaigns as key strategies in pursuit of political change. Approaching these practices of knowledge production as expressions of narrative agency, this chapter examines how bearing witness has allowed women from marginalized ethnic minority communities to gain significant influence. It traces the evolution of human rights documentation targeting international audiences as a key strategy for the Burmese women’s movement in exile, and explores the politics of how narratives about violence and human right abuses are produced, circulated, silenced and heard. The chapter notes that constraints regarding which narratives can be heard and amplified in an international political context have led to an emphasis on conflict-related sexual violence at the expense of more complex narratives of structural gendered violence and insecurity. Further, after the onset of a political reform period in Myanmar in 2011, the interest of international actors shifted towards collaboration with government, which made them less receptive to oppositional narratives of still ongoing, state-sponsored human rights abuses. This demonstrates the sensitivity of women’s narrative agency to geopolitical shifts and changes in the international politics of aid.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Routledge, 2025
National Category
Gender Studies
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-238247 (URN)10.4324/9781003530411-4 (DOI)2-s2.0-105002923287 (Scopus ID)9781040344170 (ISBN)9781032869988 (ISBN)
Available from: 2025-04-29 Created: 2025-04-29 Last updated: 2025-04-29Bibliographically approved
Olivius, E., Åkebo, M. & Hedström, J. (2025). Navigating friction: women’s peacebuilding in hybrid regimes. European Journal of International Relations
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Navigating friction: women’s peacebuilding in hybrid regimes
2025 (English)In: European Journal of International Relations, ISSN 1354-0661, E-ISSN 1460-3713Article in journal (Refereed) Epub ahead of print
Abstract [en]

International peacebuilding paradigms represent women’s organizations as important peacebuilding partners. However, most conflict-affected states are authoritarian or hybrid regimes, where women’s peacebuilding work may be associated with both difficulties and danger. While feminist peacebuilding scholarship has focused its critique on the frictional encounters between local women’s organizations and international liberal peacebuilding, it has not sufficiently explored how women’s peacebuilding practices are shaped by authoritarian state policies. Bringing together feminist work on friction in global-local encounters and work on civil society-state relations in non-democratic settings, we argue that friction is manifested as tensions and conflicts in several relationships. Drawing on interviews with women activists in and from Sri Lanka and Myanmar, this article examines how women’s organizations negotiate the constraints and pressures emerging from their relationships with international peacebuilding partners and donors, as well as with state authorities. Women’s organizations engage in a delicate balancing act to navigate state tactics of repression, co-optation and legitimation, and this precarious position is often further complicated by the practices and norms of international peacebuilders. Exploring these multidimensional frictional dynamics, the article contributes to a fuller understanding of the political conditions that shape the peacebuilding practices of women’s organizations and the ways in which they mobilize to navigate these conditions.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Sage Publications, 2025
Keywords
civil society, hybrid regimes, Myanmar, peacebuilding, Sri Lanka, Women’s activism
National Category
Other Geographic Studies Gender Studies
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-239436 (URN)10.1177/13540661251340781 (DOI)001493709600001 ()2-s2.0-105005874235 (Scopus ID)
Funder
Swedish Research Council, 2019-04227Swedish Research Council, 2021-02419
Available from: 2025-06-02 Created: 2025-06-02 Last updated: 2025-06-02
Brandén, J. & Olivius, E. (2024). Att fånga det politiska i en post-politisk tid: Trygghet och jämställdhet som styrningsverktyg. Statsvetenskaplig Tidskrift, 126(4), 703-718
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Att fånga det politiska i en post-politisk tid: Trygghet och jämställdhet som styrningsverktyg
2024 (Swedish)In: Statsvetenskaplig Tidskrift, ISSN 0039-0747, Vol. 126, no 4, p. 703-718Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [sv]

Hur kan politik studeras i en tid där styrning kommit att handla om att hitta rätta lösningar på förgivettagna problem? I denna artikel argumenterar vi för governmentality som ett användbart perspektiv för att analysera makt och fånga ”det politiska” i politik och styrning. Utifrån exempel från vår forskning belyser vi hur governmentality-perspektivet kan synliggöra hur två till synes obestridligt goda mål, trygghet och jämställdhet, opererar som styrningsverktyg som bidrar till att dölja motsättningar och motstridiga intressen. Governmentality-perspektivet erbjuder en användbar analytisk verktygslåda för att undersöka hur politiska problem görs styrbara samt hur styrningen legitimeras och görs begriplig. Perspektivet gör det också möjligt att synliggöra den ofta outtalade problemförståelse som ligger bakom olika sätt att angripa politiska problem. Detta perspektiv öppnar således upp för analytiska frågor som vi ser som helt centrala för statsvetenskaplig forskning i en tid som präglas av en utbredd avpolitisering av i grunden politiska problem som exempelvis jämställdhet och trygghet

Abstract [en]

How can politics be critically explored, at a time when governing is increasingly seen as a matter of technical problem-solving? In this article, we argue that a governmentality perspective provides a fruitful analytical approach for capturing power and the political in processes and practices of governing. Drawing on our respective research, we highlight how two seemingly indisputable and desirable policy goals – safety and gender equality – operate as governing tools in ways that conceal political conflict and contestation. A governmentality perspective offers a useful analytical toolbox for exploring how political problems are constructed and rendered governable, and how governing practices are legitimated as a particular problem representation is naturalized. This analytical approach thus draws attention to questions of particular relevance in an era of post-politics and widespread de-politicization of fundamentally political issues, such as safety or gender equality.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Fahlbeckska stiftelsen, 2024
Keywords
Governmentality, post-politics, critical analysis, power, politics, safety, gender equality, Governmentality, post-politik, kritisk analys, makt, politik, trygghet, jämställdhet
National Category
Political Science
Research subject
political science
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-233553 (URN)
Available from: 2025-01-07 Created: 2025-01-07 Last updated: 2025-01-08Bibliographically approved
Boulanger Martel, S. P., Jarstad, A., Olivius, E., Söderström, J., Zahar, M.-J. & Åkebo, M. (2024). Peace with adjectives: conceptual fragmentation or conceptual innovation?. International Studies Review, 26(2), Article ID viae014.
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Peace with adjectives: conceptual fragmentation or conceptual innovation?
Show others...
2024 (English)In: International Studies Review, ISSN 1521-9488, E-ISSN 1468-2486, Vol. 26, no 2, article id viae014Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

What strategies can be employed to conceptualize peace? In recent years, scholars have introduced an impressive array of “peace with adjectives” in order to make sense of some of the normative and empirical underpinnings of peace. Negative, positive, everyday, virtual, illiberal, partial, insecure, relational, emancipatory, agonistic, and feminist are some of the qualifiers that have been associated with the concept. While the growing attention to conceptualization is a welcomed development, we argue that the proliferation of new terms has led to increased fragmentation in the field of peace studies. Conceptual fragmentation impedes cumulative knowledge production and generates missed opportunities for fruitful discussions across theoretical and conceptual divides. In this article, we aim to provide more clarity to our field by mapping existing peace conceptualizations and identifying the strategies employed by scholars to construct innovative new terms. In our review, we identify 61 concepts and suggest that these conceptual innovations in peace research belong to one of three analytical strategies: developing diminished subtypes, conceptual narrowing, and conceptual expansion. Building on this categorization, we make recommendations for how peace researchers can enhance clarity and deepen constructive discussions between different conceptual approaches.

Abstract [es]

¿Qué estrategias se pueden utilizar para conceptualizar la paz? En los últimos años, los académicos han presentado una impresionante variedad de «paz acompañada de adjetivos» con el fin de dar sentido a algunos de los fundamentos normativos y empíricos de la paz. Algunos de los calificativos que se han asociado al concepto han sido: negativa, positiva, cotidiana, virtual, iliberal, parcial, insegura, relacional, emancipatoria, agonística y feminista. Si bien la creciente atención que se está prestando a la conceptualización es un desarrollo bienvenido, argumentamos que la proliferación de nuevos términos ha provocado una mayor fragmentación en el campo de los estudios de la paz. La fragmentación conceptual impide la producción acumulativa de conocimiento y provoca que se pierdan oportunidades para generar debates fructíferos a través de las divisiones teóricas y conceptuales. En este artículo pretendemos aportar más claridad a nuestro campo mediante el mapeo de las conceptualizaciones de paz existentes y la identificación de las estrategias que utilizan los académicos para construir nuevos términos innovadores. En nuestra revisión, identificamos 61 conceptos y sugerimos que estas innovaciones conceptuales dentro de la investigación en materia de la paz pertenecen a una de entre tres posibles estrategias analíticas: desarrollo de subtipos disminuidos, contracción conceptual y expansión conceptual. Partiendo de esta categorización, hacemos recomendaciones sobre cómo los investigadores en el campo de la paz pueden lograr una mejora con relación a la claridad y profundizar en los debates constructivos que se generan entre los diferentes enfoques conceptuales.

Abstract [fr]

Quelles stratégies employer pour conceptualiser la paix ? Ces dernières années, les chercheurs ont introduit un éventail impressionnant de « paix avec adjectifs » afin de faire sens de certains fondements normatifs et empiriques de la paix. Négative, positive, quotidienne, virtuelle, illibérale, partielle, précaire, relationnelle, émancipatrice, agnostique, féministe… Tous ces mots ont été employés pour qualifier ce concept. Bien que l'attention croissante à la conceptualisation soit une évolution bienvenue, nous affirmons que la prolifération de nouveaux termes a engendré une fragmentation croissante du domaine des études sur la paix. La fragmentation conceptuelle entrave la production de connaissances cumulatives et crée des occasions manquées de discussions productives par delà les divisions théoriques et conceptuelles. Dans cet article, nous cherchons à contribuer à plus de clarté dans notre domaine en retraçant les conceptualisations existantes de la paix et en identifiant les stratégies employées par les chercheurs pour créer de nouveaux termes innovants. Notre revue de la littérature identifie 61 concepts et suggère que ces innovations conceptuelles dans la recherche sur la paix appartiennent à l'une des trois stratégies analytiques suivantes : le développement de sous-types 'diminués', le rétrécissement conceptuel et l'expansion conceptuelle. En nous appuyant sur cette catégorisation, nous émettons des recommandations pour aider les chercheurs à être plus clairs et à approfondir les discussions constructives entre différentes approches conceptuelles.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Oxford University Press, 2024
Keywords
peace concepts, conceptualization, typology
National Category
Political Science (excluding Public Administration Studies and Globalisation Studies)
Research subject
Peace and Conflict Research
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-224132 (URN)10.1093/isr/viae014 (DOI)001203623300001 ()2-s2.0-85191089577 (Scopus ID)
Funder
Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, M160297:1Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, P19-1494:1
Available from: 2024-05-08 Created: 2024-05-08 Last updated: 2024-05-13Bibliographically approved
Hedström, J., Olivius, E. & Soe, K. (2024). Women in Myanmar: change and continuity (2ed.). In: Adam Simpson; Nicholas Farrelly (Ed.), Myanmar: politics, economy and society (pp. 220-236). Routledge
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Women in Myanmar: change and continuity
2024 (English)In: Myanmar: politics, economy and society / [ed] Adam Simpson; Nicholas Farrelly, Routledge, 2024, 2, p. 220-236Chapter in book (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

Gender inequalities have persisted across macro-political changes in Myanmar. The decade of reforms provided more opportunities for women, but the 2021 military coup reinstated an almost exclusively male-dominated decision-making structure in the country. While Myanmar is home to numerous ethnic groups with diverse cultures, norms and traditions, the work of women activists and scholars has revealed widespread patterns of discrimination against women. Notably, this reality contrasts sharply with a popular official rhetoric about Burmese women’s ‘inherent equality’ with men – a narrative that has arguably done more to bolster the legitimacy of Myanmar’s governments than to improve women’s lives. This chapter provides an analysis of change and continuity in terms of both opportunities and challenges for realising women’s equality in Myanmar. Taking the situation of women during military rule before 2011 as a starting point, the analysis next moves on to exploring women’s experiences of the transition and their attempts at leveraging political openings for gender equality under the NLD government. We then explore the effects of the 2021 military coup on women, before concluding with a discussion of future challenges and opportunities for women’s rights in Myanmar.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Routledge, 2024 Edition: 2
National Category
Gender Studies
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-216874 (URN)10.4324/9781003386063-18 (DOI)2-s2.0-85176372280 (Scopus ID)978-1-032-47809-8 (ISBN)978-1-032-47810-4 (ISBN)978-1-003-38606-3 (ISBN)
Available from: 2023-12-12 Created: 2023-12-12 Last updated: 2023-12-12Bibliographically approved
Olivius, E., Demir, E. & Lee-Koo, K. (2023). Book Reviews editorial. International feminist journal of politics, 25(1), 145-147
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Book Reviews editorial
2023 (English)In: International feminist journal of politics, ISSN 1461-6742, E-ISSN 1468-4470, Vol. 25, no 1, p. 145-147Article in journal, Editorial material (Other academic) Published
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Routledge, 2023
National Category
Political Science
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-217492 (URN)10.1080/14616742.2022.2159127 (DOI)
Available from: 2023-12-05 Created: 2023-12-05 Last updated: 2023-12-06Bibliographically approved
Olivius, E., Demir, E. & Lee-Koo, K. (2023). Book Reviews editorial. International feminist journal of politics, 25(3), 551-553
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Book Reviews editorial
2023 (English)In: International feminist journal of politics, ISSN 1461-6742, E-ISSN 1468-4470, Vol. 25, no 3, p. 551-553Article in journal, Editorial material (Other academic) Published
National Category
Political Science
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-217495 (URN)10.1080/14616742.2023.2215580 (DOI)
Available from: 2023-12-05 Created: 2023-12-05 Last updated: 2023-12-06Bibliographically approved
Olivius, E., Demir, E. & Lee-Koo, K. (2023). Book Reviews editorial. International feminist journal of politics, 25(2), 353-355
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Book Reviews editorial
2023 (English)In: International feminist journal of politics, ISSN 1461-6742, E-ISSN 1468-4470, Vol. 25, no 2, p. 353-355Article in journal (Other academic) Published
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Routledge, 2023
National Category
Political Science
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-217494 (URN)10.1080/14616742.2023.2187106 (DOI)
Available from: 2023-12-05 Created: 2023-12-05 Last updated: 2023-12-06Bibliographically approved
Olivius, E., Demir, E. & Lee-Koo, K. (2023). Book Reviews editorial. International feminist journal of politics, 25(5), 960-962
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Book Reviews editorial
2023 (English)In: International feminist journal of politics, ISSN 1461-6742, E-ISSN 1468-4470, Vol. 25, no 5, p. 960-962Article in journal, Editorial material (Other academic) Published
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Routledge, 2023
National Category
Political Science
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-217498 (URN)10.1080/14616742.2023.2269673 (DOI)
Available from: 2023-12-05 Created: 2023-12-05 Last updated: 2023-12-06Bibliographically approved
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Identifiers
ORCID iD: ORCID iD iconorcid.org/0000-0002-2400-9144

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