Women and the Gendered Frontiers of Conflict and Post-Conflict Transformation in Sierra Leone and Liberia

Abstract

The argument put forward in this thesis is that, while the impact of the civil wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia cut across gender, ethnicity, political affiliation, social class and even across international boundaries, any valid reading of these conflicts should rest upon a gender-sensitive analysis. What is proposed here is an alternative reading of these conflicts starting from a context of pre-war gender relations in which patriarchal narratives ruled over women's lives and especially their sexuality. The conflicts themselves saw the systematic use of sexual violence against females. The warring factions engaged in the mass recruitment of young men, women and children along gender lines. Men and boys were recruited as active combatants whilst most female combatants were forced into combat, although a minority did volunteer to fight. Mostly, whilst they were with the fighting factions, women performed roles that further reinforced patriarchy alongside their pre-war social and domestic responsibilities. They were used, under duress, as slaves and 'bush wives' and abused by males who believed they had a natural right of masculine superiority to exercise violent power over females. This situation, as this thesis argues, played a significant role in determining the nature and characteristics of the wars and the patterns of wartime gender relations and the narratives of those who participated in these wars. Fieldwork was conducted in Sierra Leone and Liberia in 2009 and 2010-11 to examine the nature of pre-war gender relations and the gendered patterns of wartime sexual and non-sexual violence and their impact on post-war social and community transformation. Based on a multiplex research method that takes into consideration the ethnography and socio-cultural practices of the people and countries under review, this thesis uses a gendered structural inequality theoretical framework to explain the nature and patterns of pre-war and wartime gender relations, as well as the origins and character of the warring factions, and the patterns of women's interaction within the warring factions during the conflicts in both countries. In the case of Sierra Leone, I conclude with an analysis of roles of women in rebuilding the country; and in the case of Liberia, the thesis concludes with an analysis of how women have used their belief systems to create for themselves an agency in their quest for communal social healing and post conflict-transformation.