Paloma PUENTE-LOZANO, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain
Jacobo GARCÍA-ÁLVAREZ, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain
Feminist geopolitics has become over the last two decades a very-much discussed and well-stablished approach spanning Political Geography, Gender Studies, Critical Geopolitics and related fields (Hyndman, 2001; Massaro and Williams, 2013; Dixon, 2015). Among its most outstanding contributions, it has firmly challenged the dominating epistemology and scales of geopolitics (particularly, those traditionally privileged in geopolitical analysis, e.g., the nation-state) and therefore it has refocused on the mundane, everyday reproductions (both material and discursive) of geopolitical power (Gilles and Hyndman, 2004). Disclosing and exploring gender-based elements of/in geopolitical conflicts has been key to either enrichen or overcome existing understandings of violence, power, and conflict that were rooted in rather limited (and limiting) abstract normative distinctions (such as public/private, war-peace, international-domestic, etc.), which occluded or rendered invisible the specific impacts of the geopolitical on the insecure bodies and lives of certain groups (Fluri, 2009).
This communication will provide an analysis of how feminist and gender-based approaches can be brought to bear to geopolitical analysis of border conflicts in order to show the epistemological and political purchase of this approach. The communication will focus on how the inner workings of power, violence and vulnerability can be explored from a gender-based perspective and, accordingly, how specific forms of acting, resisting or copping-with arise in border violent conflicts, in which gender itself becomes a geopolitical site through which violence is enacted and reproduced.
Mots clés : Feminist geopolitics|Gender|Conflicts|Borders|Political Geography
A104226PP