Tag: Featured

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22 December – On motherhood, populist nationalism and peace-time body politics of political economy

22 December 1928 – forgotten day of women’s activism

Hari Ibu, mother’s day, celebrated today in Indonesia has an intriguing, yet often forgotten, feminist history. Originally the day was chosen to commemorate the First Congress of Women held in 1928 in Mataram just few months after the historic Youth Congress that is considered as one of the culmination point for demands for decolonialization and formation of Indonesian nationalism.

The women’s congress focused on questions of right to education, child marriage, divorce and secular marriage law, but also Western influence on women. During the authoritarian presidency of Suharto also known as the ‘New Order’ turned the day into  Hari Ibu (Mother’s day), with the focus on state ideology on motherhood (state ibuisme), being a good wife and mother. The day has been since celebrated through competitions and quizzes that test women’s abilities to be good mothers and wives.

Scraps of Hope video ‘MoU Helsinki – Reclaiming back History’ is a reflection of the gendered impacts of the Aceh peace process, sexual politics and focus on morality of women, but it also importantly, brings back to the peace table (video is shot at the location of signing of the peace settlement in Finland) the discussion on exploitative peace time political economy and gendered impacts of natural disasters. It provides an alternative vision for the celebration of Hari Ibu in ways that reclaims back the history and addresses some of the most burning questions on economic justice and wellbeing.

Populist reclaiming of history – the case of Cut Meutia and new banknotes

Indonesian government has released new banknotes on Monday. New 100,000, 50,000, 20,000, 10,000, 5,000, 2,000 and 1,000 Rupiah banknotes feature an interesting selection of historic figures, nationalists, and civilian and military participants in anti-colonial movement: president Sukarno, prime minister and signatory of proclamation of independence Mohammad Hatta, the last prime minister Djuanda Kartawidjaja (after whom the post was abolished allowing greater powers for the president), member of Volksraad (Dutch East Indie’s Parliament) and preparatory committee for Indonesian independence Sam Ratulangi, Papuan pro-Indonesia politician Frans Kaisepo, politician and chairperson of Nahdlatul Ulama Idham Chalid, member of Volksraad and advocate of plantation labour rights Mohammad Hoesni Thamrin, politician I Gusti Ketut Pudja, colonel of Indonesian national revolution TB Simatupang, founder of socialist Indies party Tjipto Mangunkusumo, professor (rural technology) Herman Johannes and last but not least, Acehnese female military commander Cut/Tjut Meutia (1870-1910) who fought in the war against the Dutch.

The 1.000 Rupiah banknote with Cut Meutia has caused debate in Aceh. Not because Cut Meutia is only the third Acehnese national hero to be featured in the Indonesian banknotes after Teuku Umar and Cut Nyak Dhien a couple who fought against the Dutch. Or that it was the lowest nomination given to a woman in the group of eleven men. Instead, Acehnese legislative assembly member Asrizal H Ansnawi (PAN) has questioned the right of the Bank of Indonesia for picturing Cut Meutia without Islamic headscarf and asked the banks in Aceh not to circulate the new banknote in Aceh.

Few days into this request, a number of emerging Acehnese scholars such as Raisa Kamila and  Herman Syah have responded to this demand. In their response to this attempt to ‘reclaim history’ they illustrate that from the sources available (photographs, illustrations and narrations in books), Cut Meutia in fact did not wear a headscarf and like many of the female military commanders and elites of her time, her dress did not consist of what is these days considered as ‘traditional’ Acehnese, or modest Islamic, dress.

Raisa Kamila further suggests, that the case of the banknote is a continuation of a longer Acehnese and Indonesian history in which the female body becomes the battleground for politics and violence, but a one that is not controlled by women: Gerwani women were stripped in 1965 in search of communist tattoos, Chinese women were raped during the Jakarta riots in 1998 and women were shaved and publicly paraded in the streets of Banda Aceh in 2001 when the legislation on Islamic dress code was brought up in Jakarta.

Reprint of the talks held at the First Congress of Women of 1928:

Susan Blackburn (2008) The First Indonesian Women’s Congress of 1928. Monash Asia Institute

-“- (2007) Kongres Perempuan Pertama. KITLV-Jakarta.

Read my earlier analysis (Jauhola 2010) of the celebration of Hari Ibu and gendered uses of national emblem Garuda, bird-like creature.

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Turning the gaze at European post-war project

Edit: on 8 Nov 2016 added first paragraph which was not part of the original written talk but improvised on spot
Keynote on Gender and Conflicts at Power Structures, Conflict Resolution and Social Justice Symposium 13-14 October 2016 EU-India Social Science and Humanities Platform (EqUIP) – please check against delivery.

Before I move on to my prepared talk, I want to add: although I am now located in Gender Studies at the University of Helsinki I have not studied a single module/course of so called Western-campus-taught Gender/Women’s Studies. Rather, the induction to me was Indian feminists and women’s organisations that I got to know when I lived in India 1999-2001. I want to raise this point here in the context of the discussion started at this symposium earlier today of the need to decolonialize academia. I want to encourage you all with this example: we can actually do quite a lot ourselves by reaching out to “alternative archives”. This learning process has been very informative for me and I can see traces of that in my research, and teaching.

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At this particular moment in time, being one of the European keynote speakers at this event, is particularly painful, but I would also say extremely important: turning the gaze towards Europe, Europeaness and the potential violence that these ideas entail.

The painfulness stems from the inability of European leaders or European public, along with their global partners to deal humanely the catastrophes that have been unfolding in front of our eyes for years now. Ironically, the European Union (EU) was awarded the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize “for over six decades [having] contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe” and how this contribution is in stark contrast with the realities of post-war European project, such, as

1. Crises that has been unfolding in Syria for too long – the recent broken cessation of hostilities agreement, attacks on humanitarian aid convoys, hospitals and life line services – it truly breaks my heart participating and negotiating the principles and ACTIONS to be taken in the development of the Finnish 3rd National Action Plan on the implementation of UNSCR1325 – when at the same time, so little hope is visible for Syrians in and outside of Syria

2. Building the fortress Europe, and resulting as a crisis of humanity – the inability to address the catastrophe on the shores of the European union in particular related to migration policies and the return to national self-interests and reinforcing the European Union’s external border with a severe humanitarian cost.

3. Gendered Political Economy: Cedaw committee’s reports on Greece in particular, are alarming: the aftershocks of the 2008 financial crises, especially in the Eurozone, that are felt as new structural forms of gender violence: austerity measures that have brought along with them new forms of gender conservatism and discrimination – measures that have been at the heart of the demands of the troika of IMF, European Central Bank and European commission have been at the forefront – making demands to cut social and health services (major employment sector for women) – but also new restrictions to women’s rights such as sexual and reproductive rights as the recent cases from Spain, and Poland, illustrate

4. Growth of populist right wing politics, Islamophobia and racism and violence that takes form – just to give you a few examples from Finland – campaigns to “close borders” and “protect white Finnish women from brown men” entering Finland as asylum seekers from Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and other countries in crises.

5. Sexual politics of peace/post-war reconstruction through images of ‘good and respectable women’: Inability to address history of gendered violence in conflicts internally – I use here 1) the case of “German brides” in Finland, and the demonization of Finnish women who fraternized with German soldiers, and 2) how post-war reconstruction in the aftermath of WWII/Finnish Lapland has meant several decades long oppression of the only indigenous people – Sámi people – in the whole of European Union. 

In the words of Skolt Same activist, theatre director Pauliina Feodoroff: Skolt Sáme world ended after the 1930’s. We Skolt Sámi in three post-Second World War countries of Russia, Finland, Norway live in the spatiality and temporality of apocalypse. Hydropower, nuclear weapons, forced displacements of villages in the name of development, mining activity and cultural change accelerated by wars and displacement have been total: fast and extremely fatal, encompassing all spheres of life. Another Sámi feminist scholar Rauna Kuokkanen (Kuokaanen 2007, Knobblock and Kuokkanen 2015) has suggested that indigenizing the Finnish postwar history writing reaquires mourning of loss and victimhood, without which it is impossible to visualize the future and reabuild oneself and reconstruct the debate in Sámi terms: deal with the question of settler colonialism, conflict between indigenous and post-war recovery market economies, and indigenous political agency.

Let’s have a pause here.

Afore mentioned crises are all taking place simultaneously with another set of global agenda making, i.e. the UN Security Council Resolution 1325, and the consequent 7 other resolutions adopted between 2008 and 2015 also known as women/gender, peace and security agenda.

A recent International Affairs journal’s special issue (March 2016) dedicated to the theme made the following observations:

– WPS agenda is not uniform, in theory, concept or practice

– WPS/UNSCR1325 agenda is most successful at a policy document and resolution level – but not as being translated into various fields of ‘practice’

– Although celebrated as a comprehensive agenda to address gendered conflicts, peacebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction processes, the implementation, and planning for National Action Plans by the member states has been selective: giving stronger focus on violence prevention and protection (from gender and sexual violence) than on women’s participation in peace and security governance.

– Narrowing down the agenda has ambiguous/paranoid political implications: there is a clear need to focus on conflict related sexual violence, however, losing the focus on participation risks losing the critical significance of articulating women as agents of change in conflict and post-conflict environments AS both right-bearers and rights-protectors

– The focus purely on the conflict-related sexual violence closes the feminist scholar’s observation of the ‘continuum of violence’ – in fact, the peace processes, peace settlements can be dangerous fruits for new forms of gendered discrimination in legal, political and economic spheres.

– Special issue editors Laura Shepherd and Paul Kirby make suggestions: an alternative would be to making the links between sexualized violence and participation visible: and in fact pay attention to how sexualized and gender-based violence inhibits women’s (or more widely those subjectification to Gender-based violence) participation in formal and informal politics. Secondly, it would require acknowledgement that WPS agenda cannot be advocated and implemented without more comprehensive focus on reparation and development, connecting protection and prevention of violence to the questions of rule of law, economic, political, social rights and holistic wellbeing

Furthermore,

– Focus on the UNSCR1325, or implementation is on foreign policy oriented, and UNSCR1325 has therefore become a tool for country-branding

– In the case of Finland, this has led into a severe construction of a myth of “achieved gender equality” – that can be experts elsewhere through gender knowhow and expertism – which remains completely unable to tackle domestic intersections of gender with other social inequalities and oppressions, or the aforementioned crises

– in advocating implementation of UNSCR1325 through peace mediation, humanitarian assistance at the same time when the government has in fact cut down its development aid budget, made several revisions that harden the policies towards refugees and asylum seekers and have allowed continuous growth of neo-nazi, racist movements that not only pose verbal but also physical threat to those opposing them.

I suppose the big (research) questions that I have in mind while wanting to juxtapose these parallel phenomena and political processes, is the following:

1. what happens to the feminist and gender theorising and/or activism on peace & conflicts when they become institutionalized into regional, or state-focused foreign policy agenda – that may become handmaidens or essential part of nationalist, populist, and racist agendas?

2. Following from that, is the following question: What new feminist conceptual and analytical tools do we need to study the lack of policy coherence between interior, migration/refugee, humanitarian, development, trade (arms trade in particular), allowing for a more comprehensive understanding of the linkages, often silenced, between policy agendas – that have gendered effects.

It is these times that set up a test for Europe, or European states as “promoters of ideas and values” – juxtaposition that is made in comparison to focus on military and economic power. Normative power Europe is in crises, if it cannot deliver the same normative basis of human rights, humanity and principles of wellbeing to people who are being subjected to right-wing politics, guarding and closing borders.

Thirdly, it is necessary to ask the fundamental question of the discriminative threat of the wording in Lisbon Treaty that establishes the aim of the European Union to “to promote peace, its values and the well-being of its peoples”. Who counts as ’its peoples’? Who is left out from this notion of European well-being? Using sociologist Gurminder Bhambra’s words: ”such social theorists of European crisis fail to address the colonial histories of Europe. This failure enables to dismiss Europe’s postcolonial & multicultural present” (Bhambra 2015)

Finally, these questions, the divide between the “policy talk” and “implementation” and increasing definition of concepts and terminology to serve specific groups and their entitlements in the face of crises that are global, and that require global, not nationalistic solutions. How do we translate them into theoretical-methodological discussions that go beyond ‘discourse’ as texts and speeches and focus on structures, and embodied materiality. What is the real gendered cost of the fortress Europe, or any other attempt to construct post-war/conflict states and identities – and how should we address them?

Non-Linked References

Bhambra, Gurminder K.. 2015. Whither Europe?. Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies 18(2), 187-202. 

Knobblock, Ina and Kuokkanen,Rauna ‘Decolonizing feminism in the North: a conversation with Rauna Kuokkanen’, NORA—Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research 23: 4, 2015, pp. 275–81.

Kuokkanen, Rauna ‘Saamelaiset ja kolonialismin vaikutukset nykypäivänä’, in Joel Kuortti, Mikko Lehtonen and Olli Löytty, eds, Kolonialismin jäljet: keskustat, periferiat ja Suomi (Helsinki: Gaudeamus, 2007).

Image credits: Cristiano Salgado, Expresso, Portugal

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What are we mainstreaming when we mainstream gender?

Gender mainstreaming has become one of the most important policy tools for promoting gender equality and women’s rights globally. Even Security Council, in its resolutions to promote gender equality and women’s rights in peacebuilding, calls for action through gender mainstreaming (UNSCR 1325, 1888, 1889, 1960, 2106, 2122, 2422). Resolutions also specifically request gender expertise, gender analysis, and gender-sensitive training to ensure capabilities for implementing gender mainstreaming.

Since the formal acknowledgement of gender mainstreaming principle in 1995 at the Fourth UN World Conference on Women in Beijing,  I’ve had number of roles as a) an advocate for the integration of gender equality policies in Finnish development cooperation and overall Finnish government policies b) gender trainer in European civilian and military crisis management operation and UN military observer pre-departure trainings, c) evaluator of the effectiveness of the gender mainstreaming programme in post-conflict statebuilding context of Bosnia-Herzegovina; and d) gender advisor of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.

During those years, however, I was getting more and more troubled that concepts such as ‘gender mainstreaming’ or ‘gender equality’, or ‘women’s empowerment’ are political concepts: they carry meanings that are results of negotiation processes, although when turned into policy advocacy or tools, they often appear as neutral and natural.

From 2005 onwards, when I began my PhD studies, instead of asking how well gender mainstreaming is implemented, I became more interested in understanding what gender mainstreaming does. Thus, rather than seeing gender mainstreaming as something that has been already been set in stone, i.e. we always already know what it is, my research aimed at arguing, illustrating with the examples from Aceh, Indonesia, that it is an active process of negotiating norms: gender norms, but also importantly other norms, such as nationalism, religious identity, class, socio-economic status, sexuality and so on.

Here are the slides of a lecture I gave on gender mainstreaming on 28 September 2016 at the Gender, Conflicts and Security in a Globalised World course organised by Valpuri, Faculty of Social Sciences Gender Studies Teaching Basket at the University of Helsinki.

 

My 2010 PhD thesis (International Politics, University of Aberystwyth, Wales) ‘Becoming Better ‘Men’ and ‘Women’: Negotiating Normativity through Gender Mainstreaming in Post-Tsunami Reconstruction initiatives in Aceh, Indonesia was funded by European Community Marie Curie Host Fellowship for Early Stage Researchers Training, 2006-2009 and Academy of Finland funded project ‘Gendered Agency in Conflict: Gender Sensitive Approach to Development and Conflict Management Practices’, 2007-2010.

An edited version was published in 2013 by Routledge as Post-Tsunami Reconstruction in Indonesia: Negotiating Normativity through Gender Mainstreaming Initiatives in Aceh.

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Vihreä feministinen turvallisuuspolitiikka – keisarin uudet vaatteet?

(tekstiä editoitu 18.9. klo 22:30 lisäämällä maininta Wallströmin ja Soinin Vieraskynä-kirjoituksesta HS:ssa 12.9.

Feministinen hyvinvointivaltiopolitiikka ja valtioiden harjoittama tasa-arvopolitiikka ovat kriisissä, tai ainakin talouskriisin ratkaisuyrityksiin liittyvien leikkausten välikappaleena ja uudenlaisen oikeistolaisen politiikan työkalu.

Samaan aikaan kuitenkin feminismi on nyt ”in” ulko- ja turvallisuuspolitiikassa: Margot Wallströmin lanseeraama feministinen ulkopolitiikka kuohuttaa ja kiinnostaa kansainvälisesti. Wallströmin esiintyessä yhdessä ulkoministeri Soinin kanssa kieli kuitenkin muuttuu: feminismin tilalle tulee sukupuolten välinen tasa-arvo.

Toisaalta Pohjoismaissa on syntynyt uusia feminismille sitoutuneita puolueita, esimerkkeinä Ruotsin Feminiskt Initiativ ja Suomessa kesällä 2016 kannattajakorttien keräämisen ja kuntavaalitavoitteet asettanut feministinen puolue.Feminististä puoluetta on jo ehditty kiitellä siitä, että sen synnyttäminen tullee merkitsemään poliittisen keskustelun sähköistymistä. Vanhat puolueet eivät halua jäädä feminismissään jalkoihin.

Feministisen puolueen perustavan kokouksen jälkeen feminismiin tarttuivat nyt syyskuussa Vihreät, joka julkaisi 18.9. ulko- ja turvallisuuspoliittisen linjapaperinsa valtuuskunnan kokouksessa Tikkurilassa, Vantaalla. Mitä Vihreät feministisellä turvallisuuspolitiikalla tarkoittavat ja millaisin keinoin sitä halutaan ajaa?

Helsingin Sanomien artikkelin jälkeen jäin pohtimaan, nouseeko feminismi turpo-linjauksen läpileikkaavaksi teemaksi, vai yhtyykö Vihreät –puolue ’maan tapaan’ (s.35), jossa feminismi ulko- ja turvallisuuspolitiikassa, tosin usein sitä lainkaan feminismiksi nimeämättä, rajataan naisten oikeuksien ja tasa-arvon edistämiseen kehitysyhteistyössä ja YK:n turvallisuusneuvoston päätöslauselman 1325 (ns. naiset, rauha ja turvallisuus –päätöslauselma) toteuttamisena Suomen ulkosuhteissa ja osana Suomen maabrändin luomista.

Vihreiden turvallisuuspoliittinen linjapaperi on jaettu seitsemään osioon, joista ”Suomi rauhan rakentajana: feminististä turvallisuuspolitiikkaa” on kuudes. Muut linjauksen otsikkotason teemat ovat: Euroopan unioni, yhteistyö Ruotsin kanssa, Venäjä, kyberturvallisuus ja tiedustelu, Arktinen alue ja aseriisunta.

Johdanto tekee lupaavan avauksen: laaja turvallisuuskäsite ja kansainväliset oikeudet nostetaan Vihreiden turvallisuus- ja puolustuspolitiikan keskiöön. Laaja turvallisuuskäsite ei sinänsä tuo mitään uutta viime vuosikymmeninä käytyyn suomalaiseen keskusteluun.  Tätä keskustelua on kuitenkin kritisoitu, kansainvälisesti, feministisen turvallisuustutkimuksen piirissä sukupuolisokeaksi. Nostamalla feministisen turvallisuuspolitiikan linjauksensa yhdeksi avainteemoista, Vihreät tekevätkin uuden avauksen turvallisuuspoliittiselle keskustelulle.

Vihreiden linjaus ei kuitenkaan valtavirtaista feminismiä koko turvallisuuspolitiikan perustaksi, vaan feminismi rajataan koskemaan suomalaista maabrändiä rauhanrakentajana. Vaikka linjaus toteaakin, että turvallisuuspolitiikan keskiöön on nostettava rakenteellinen ja sukupuolittunut väkivalta – nämä periaatteet rajataan koskettamaan rauhanvälitystä, kriisinhallintaa ja kehitysyhteistyötä.  Ainoa linjauksessa mainittu Suomea koskeva rakenteellinen sukupuolisyrjinnän muoto on yhdelle sukupuolelle pakollinen asevelvollisuus.

Myönnän, että petyin. Oma odotukseni nimittäin oli, että feministinen turvallisuuspolitiikka noudattelisi feministinen turvallisuuspolitiikan tutkimuksen jo vuosikymmeniä esille tuomia teemoja:  sukupuolittuneen väkivallan tai esim. useamman CEDAW-komitean raportin esittämän huolen maahanmuuttajanaisten kohtaamasta moniperustaisesta syrjinnästä erityisesti terveydenhuollon, koulutuksen ja työllistymisen kysymyksissä.

Myöskään Sipilän hallituksen tekemät turvapaikka- ja maahanmuuttoa rajoittavat lait ja päätökset (esim. perheenyhdistämislaki) tai ihmiskaupan ja turvapaikkapolitiikan kytkökset eivät näyttäydy linjaukseen sisältyvinä kysymyksinä.

Vihreiden tekemä avaus feministisestä turvallisuuspolitiikasta tuotti pettymyksen. Linjaus ei ota kantaa nyky-hallituksen linjauksiin, joilla on merkittäviä vaikutuksia laajan turvallisuuden, sukupuolten tasa-arvon ja yhdenvertaisuuden, toteutumiselle. Seuraavaksi katseeni kääntyy feministisen puolueen ulko- ja turvallisuuspoliittisiin linjauksiin. Sparraajaa tarvitaan edelleen.

Lisäluettavaa:

Jauhola, Marjaana (2016)“Decolonizing branded peacebuilding: abjected women talk back to the Finnish Women, Peace and Security Agenda“, International Affairs 92(2), 333-351.

Jauhola, Marjaana and Kantola, Johanna (2016). “Globaali sukupuolipolitiikka Suomessa” (in Finnish) in Husso, Marita and Heiskala, Risto (eds.) Sukupuolikysymys. Helsinki: Gaudeamus, 187-208.

Jauhola, Marjaana (2015) Feminismiä 1+364: Feministisen ulkopolitiikan välttämättömyydestä, Politiikasta.fi 9.3.2015

Jauhola, Marjaana (2015) Helsingin rauhanneuvottelujen toiset kasvot – Aceh 10 vuotta myöhemmin, Politiikasta.fi 13.8.2015

Jauhola, Marjaana (2012) Tasa-arvosta Suomen vientituote? Suomalainen tasa-arvopuhe erojen tuottajana teoksessa “Suomalaisen politiikan murroksia ja muutoksia” Kari Paakkunainen (toim.). Politiikan ja talouden tutkimuksen laitoksen julkaisuja 2012:1, Helsinki.

Jauhola, Marjaana (2002) Sillanrakentajia – naiset konflikteja ehkäisemässä Helsinki: Kansalaisten turvallisuusneuvosto (KATU).

 

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Suomen 1325-politiikka – tehotonta maabrändäystä vai mistä onkaan kysymys?

Syys-lokakuusta on tullut, sitten vuonna 2000 YK:n turvallisuusneuvoston hyväksymän päätöslauselman nro 1325 (aka UNSCR1325, naiset, rauha ja turvallisuus -päätöslauselma), kiireinen kansainvälisen tasa-arvo- ja ihmisoikeuspolitiikan näyttämö.

Myös tänä syksynä tapahtuu, presidentti Niinistö osallistuu YK:n yleiskokoukseen ja isännöi syyskuun lopussa illallisen osana He for She -kampanjaa, jonne kutsutaan 30 ns. impact championia. Indonesiasta kuuluu huhuja, että Indonesian presidentti Joko Widowo on yksi korkea-arvoiseen tehtävään valituista. Indonesialaisen median jälkeen puheenvuoron ottivat indonesialaiset feministit ja naisaktivistit: mitä Widowo oikeastaan tietää naisten aseman tai tasa-arvon edistämisestä ja mitkä konkreettiset teot tätä vaikuttavuuden mestaruus -nimitystä tukevat?
Suomessa tulevat viikot ovat myöskin merkittäviä. Ulkoasiainministeriö on nimittäin luovuttanut kaksi 1325-toimintaohjelman vuosiraporttiaan (2014,2015) Eduskunnan Ulkoasiainvaliokunnan (UVA) käsiteltäväksi, vuosille 2012-16 laaditun toimintaohjelman mukaisesti. Raporttien käsittelyaikataulu ja -tapa herättää kysymyksiä: miksi raportit käsitellään yhdessä ja kuinka on mahdollista, että vuoden 2014 raporttia ei ole vielä syksyyn 2016 mennessä käsitelty? Onhan ulko-, turvallisuus- ja maahanmuuttopoliittisessa ympäristössä tapahtunut merkittäviä muutoksia viime vuosien aikana. UVAn viikkoaikataulu ei myöskään anna osviittaa siitä, että valiokunta kuulisi ulkopuolisia asiantuntijoita raportin käsittelyn yhteydessä.

Miksi tämä on ongelma, siitä tähän muutama havainto:

Olen kirjoittanut artikkelin Suomen 1325-politiikasta ja maabrändäyksestä International Affairsin (92/2) teemanumeroon “The futures of women, peace and security” jossa tuon esille usean esimerkin avulla mitä ongelmia syntyy, kun kansainvälinen normisto, tai em. päätöslauselma ja sen toimeenpano otetaan ulkopoliittisen maabrändäyksen käsikassaraksi. Se politiikan lohko, jota artikkelini ei käsitellyt, on maahanmuutto- ja turvapaikkapolitiikka. Pohdin tätä “hiljaisuutta” artikkelia luonnostellessani luvaten itselleni, että siihen on palattava.

Kulunut vuosi on tuonut tämän hiljentämisen politiikan valitettavalla tavalla esille. Samaan aikaan kun Suomen hallitus kirjaa 1325-politiikan toteuttamisen olennaiseksi osaksi globaalia vastuuta (hallitusohjelma s. 35), 1325-politiikka esitetään puhtaasti ulko- ja turvapolitiikan kehittämisen työvälineenä (raportti 2015, s. 2). 1325-tematiikan näkyvyyttä kiitellään erityisesti Suomen ulkopolitiikassa ja kansainvälisessä profiilissa (raportti 2015, s. 3). Suomen harjoittamaa turvapaikka- tai maahanmuuttopolitiikkaa ei tämän logiikan mukaan nähdä osana globaalia vastuuta, tai globaalia turvallisuutta. Ei vaikka, Suomen kansallinen toimintaohjelma vuosille 2012-16 toteaakin:

Suomi on sitoutunut kansainvälisen humanitaarisen oikeuden täysimääräiseen toimeenpanoon. Aseellisten konfliktien aikana sovellettavan kansainvälisen humanitaarisen oikeuden mukaan naiset ja lapset ovat erityisen haavoittuvassa asemassa. Naisten oikeuksien suojelussa kansainvälinen humanitaarinen oikeus painottaa erityisesti naisten asemaa lasten äiteinä ja huoltajina. Konfliktista kärsivien naisten tarvetta erityissuojeluun, terveydenhoitoon ja apuun on myös kunnioitettava (toimintaohjelma 2012-16, s. 33)

Jään odottamaan miten Ulkoasiainvaliokunta raportteja käsittelee. Tämä on merkittävää myös siksi, että tänä syksynä käynnistetään 3. kansallisen toimintaohjelman valmistelu.

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Scraps of Hope videos & talks @Porthania, University of Helsinki

Scraps of Hope video screening, meet & greet talks
5-19 September
Porthania, Yliopistonkatu 3, 00100 Helsinki
https://www.facebook.com/events/1059538470806668/?ti=icl

Video screenings daily at 11.45am, Unicafe video screen plus Mondays & Fridays Lehtisali (2nd floor)

Meet & greet talks on Mondays and Fridays at 12.30-13.30 Lehtisali (2nd floor)
Meet and greet programme:
Mon 5 Sept
10 Years of Gender and EU Civilian Crisis Management Missions: From Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM) onwards

Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM) was among the first EU civilian crisis management missions. Through it the EU and five ASEAN Member States monitored the peace settlement between the Indonesian government and Free Aceh Movement in 2005-2006. How did AMM incorporate gender concerns of armed conflict and peace agreements, mandated by the UN Security Council resolution 1325? How has the EU crisis management instrument evolved since the AMM? What has that meant for gender equality and justice concerns?

Docent, Academy of Finland Research Fellow Marjaana Jauhola talks with Dr. Leena Avonius, Researcher, Crisis Management Center Finland, former AMM Reintegration Co-ordinator (2005-6)
Fri 9 Sept
The use and abuse of history: Post-authoritarianism, Regime Change and Democratization in Indonesia

Following the exit of President Suharto in 1999, Indonesia has gone through a series of democratizing measures such as decentralisation, freedom of press, political parties, amendments to constitution and new state institutions. What role have these played in the settlement of armed conflict in Aceh, and what are its consequences for gender equality concerns? How has Indonesia come to terms with its violent history and atrocities of its citizens during the massacre of 1965-66 targeting members and suspects of affiliates of Indonesian Communist Party? The Aceh peace process included provisions for human rights court and truth reconciliation process. Is there scope for justice in Aceh peace process?

Docent, Academy of Finland Research Fellow Marjaana Jauhola talks with Dr. Ratih Dwiyani Adiputri, University of Jyväskylä a former legislative expert in the Indonesian parliament (2000-9) and advisor of USAID parliamentary project in Aceh (2006-7).
Mon 12 Sept
Complex emergencies and humanitarian assistance: what has gender got to do with it?

Every year, conflicts and natural disasters cause suffering for millions of people – usually for the poorest, marginalized and vulnerable populations. Humanitarian assistance aims to provide life-saving assistance, reduce human suffering and maintain dignity during and aftermath of crises. How well do these efforts address gendered vulnerabilities and capabilities? What would gender mainstreaming of humanitarian assistance look alike?

Docent, Academy of Finland Research Fellow Marjaana Jauhola talks with Satu Lassila, Senior Adviser for Humanitarian Assistance and Policy, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, former World Food Programme (WFP) Gender Adviser & Programme Adviser 1999-2004, Emergency Officer and Head of Sub-Office of WFP tsunami operation, in Aceh 2005 and Senior Adviser for Assistant-Executive Director of UN Women (HQ) 2014-15.
Fri 16 Sept
Videos on Book (VoB) – new format for media enriched e-publishing

Scraps of Hope, with the support from Finnish Cultural Foundation, has developed devise responsive hybrid/media enriched electronic publishing platform Videos on Book (VoB) – one of its first kinds in Finland (http://vob.fi/, soon available in English!).

The first demo version was released in 2015 of Marjaana Jauhola’s peer-reviewed article ‘Scraps of Home’ and the first book ‘Five women, hundred lives’ – focusing on the lived experiences of dissociation – in June 2016.

Digital designer Seija Hirstiö will introduce the VoB platform and tell how the book ’Five women, hundred lives’ came about (dissociation.fi).
Mon 19 Sept
Visual ethnography – collaboration with an ethnographer and digital designer

How to turn ethnographic life history method into documentary films or short videos? How to tackle ethical considerations of documenting lives of non-elites in a complex post-conflict context? Docent, Academy of Finland Research Fellow Marjaana Jauhola and digital designer Seija Hirstiö reflect upon their experience in shooting the Scraps of Hope videos in Indonesia in December 2015.
For more information:
scrapsofhope.fi
Facebook: Scraps of Hope
Marjaana Jauhola, (marjaana.jauhola(at)helsinki.fi, 02941-24228)

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Scraps of Hope: Ethnography of Peace in Aceh

To mark the 11th anniversary of the signing of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the 15th of August in 2005 in Helsinki in Finland, four new videos were released last week as part of the Scraps of Hope – ethnography of peace in Aceh (2012-16).

Scraps of Hope is urban ethnography of peace, post-disaster and post-conflict reconstruction politics in Aceh, Indonesia by Academy of Finland Research Fellow Marjaana Jauhola – and collaboration with digital designer Seija Hirstiö, funded by Finnish Cultural Foundation and Academy of Finland.

More events will be announced this week!

Follow Scraps of Hope in Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scrapsofhopeaceh/

Visual portfolio of Scraps of Hope: http://scrapsofhope.fi/aceh

Photo: CMI/Jenni-Justiina Niemi

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Poliittisen vaikuttamisen tulevaisuus – johon suomalainen feministinen politiikantutkimus ja keskustelut osallisina – utopiaako?

 

Tartuin vastikään Turun yliopiston ja Tulevaisuudentutkimuksen Verkostoakatemian julkaisemaan, Rauli Mickelssonin toimittamaan, kirjaan Poliittinen vaikuttaminen tulevaisuudessa.  Ja jäin pohtimaan, minne suomalainen feministinen politiikantutkimus on kadonnut – vai onko se kadonnut alkuunkaan.

Suorittamani pika-analyysini (avainsanahaut, lähdeluetteloiden läpikäynti) perusteella luentosarja ja sen perusteella toimitettu avoimesti luettavissa olevan e-julkaisun luvut, eivät valitettavasti kata laajaa feministisen politiikantutkimuksen kenttää, jota Suomessa tehdään useassa yliopistossa ja monikielisesti.

Kirjan lähdeluetteloista löysin kuitenkin seuraavat viitteet:

Pulkkinen, Tuija (1998): Postmoderni politiikan filosofia. Tampere: Gaudeamus.

Eräsaari, Leena. (2007): “Millainen yhteiskunta on hyvinvointivaltion jälkeen?”. Teoksessa Taimio, H. (toim.): Talouskasvun hedelmät – kuka sai ja kuka jäi ilman?. Helsinki: TSL, s. 211–225.

Julkunen, Raija. (2001): Suunnanmuutos. 1990-luvun sosiaalipoliittinen reformi Suomessa. Tampere: Vastapaino.

Nämä kyseiset teokset eivät valitettavasti anna kokonaiskuvaa edes kyseisten tutkijoiden julkaisujen laajuudesta, tai siitä, millä tavalla he osallistuvat/ovat osallistuneet suomalaisen, tai globaalin poliittisen ja taloudellisen järjestelmän, tai politiikan tutkimuksen kentän uudelleenmäärittelyihin. Ainoastaan tutkijat Nancy Fracer ja Iris Marion Young saavat erityismaininnan osallisuudestaan politiikan deliberatiivisuutta käytävään keskusteluun Maija Setälän Marja Seppälän luvussa ‘Mihin deliberatiivista demokratiaa tarvitaan tulevaisuudessa?’ .

Millä tavalla suomalaisen feministisen tai sukupuolen tutkimuksen esiin nostamat kysymykset sitten käsitellään kirjan eri luvuissa? Nopean asiasanahaun perusteella tulos on masentava. Feministisen tutkimuksen sisältökysymyksinä kirja nostaa esille kaksi: Petri Kylliäisen ja Raunli Mickelssonin kirjoittamassa johdannossa annetaan esimerkki maailmankuvan ja arvoperustan yhteydestä kausaaliseen päättelyyn tulevaisuudesta, jonka avulla tehdylle politiikalle luodaan oikeutus: ”Esimerkkiargumentti voisi olla: ‘Jotta naisilla olisi tasa-arvoinen mahdollisuus osallistua työelämään, on kuntien järjestettävä päivähoitopaikat tarpeen mukaan kaikille alle kouluikäisille lapsille’. Näin tasa-arvoa voidaan tulkita arvona ja käyttää sitä oikeutuksena ja perusteluna yksittäiselle politiikkaesitykselle tai –ratkaisulle” (Kylliäinen & Mickelsson 2014, 12). Toinen selkeä yhteys kansallisvaltiot ylittävään feministiseen poliittiseen työhön ja sen tuloksiin luodaan Heikki Paloheimon luvussa ‘Politiikan pitkät syklit ja poliittisen kentän uusjako’, jossa lukijaa muistutetaan vuonna 1966 hyväksytystä kansalaisten taloudellisia, sosiaalisia ja sivistyksellisiä oikeuksia koskevasta perussopimuksesta (ns. TSS-oikeudet) ja tätä myöten YK:n jäsenmaiden hallitusten velvoitteesta edistää maissaan sukupuolten välistä tasa-arvoa (Paloheimo 2014, 82).

Olisi toisen ja pidemmän blogikirjoituksen paikka tehdä aihe- ja lukukohtainen lähdeluettelo siitä tutkimuksesta, jota suomalaistutkijat ovat tehneet esimerkiksi näistä teemoista:

  • Feministiset globaalin poliittisen talouden teoriat ja globalisaatiotutkimus
  • Yhdenvertaisuus ja moniperustainen syrjintä
  • Luokka ja sukupuoli politiikassa
  • Poliittinen osallistuminen ja yhdenvertaisuus
  • Feministinen tulevaisuudentutkimus
  • feministinen ulko- ja turvallisuuspolitiikka, ml. kriisinhallinta, kehitysyhteistyö, kauppapolitiikka
  • feministinen aktivismi, vaihtoehtoiset visiot hyvinvoinnista, tasa-arvosta ja yhdenvertaisuudesta
  • valtiofeminismi ja sen muutokset kohti markkinafeminismiä
  • feministinen analyysi maailman talousfoorumeista, Occupy-liikkeestä ja muista ns. vaihtoehtoisia poliittisia ja taloudellisia malleja tarjoavista liikkeistä
  • feministinen kritiikki osallistavasta suunnittelusta, deliberaatiosta ja lähidemokratian toteutumisesta
  • EU ja sen muutokset tasa-arvo- ja yhdnvertaisuuspolitiikkaan Suomessa

Omilla luennoillani opetan opiskelijoille kriittisen lukutaidon kehittämistä. Nimitän metodia “outouttamisen menetelmäksi”. Siinä huomio kiinnitetään hiljaisuuksiin, poisvalintoihin, tai siihen miten joku asia vakuuttavasti argumentoidaan luonnolliseksi tai kyseenalaistamattomaksi. Tätä työkalua suosittelen kaikille kirjan Poliittinen vaikuttaminen tulevaisuudessa lukijoille. Kaikki ei ole sitä miltä se näyttää – ainakaan tämän kirjan perusteella.

Hyödynnetty kirjallisuus:

Mickelsson, Raunli (toim) Poliittinen vaikuttaminen tulevaisuudessa. Turku: Turun yliopisto ja Tulevaisuudentutkimuksen Verkostoakatemia, 2014.

 

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Postcapitalist Economies, Global Connections: Taking Back the Economy

From left to right: ice-berg economy, economy as floating coconut (edit:12 June 2016)

 

Comments to Professor Katherine Gibson’s talk at the University of Helsinki

Gibson’s talk can be listened here

I am thrilled of this possibility – to have a dialogue on community economics, embracing commons, surviving together and exploring what ethical action requires from us

My commentary that follows can be read as a struggle against paranoia and reparation – concepts that late Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick so brilliantly and kindly introduced to us in her book “Touching feeling: affect, pedagogy, performativity” – to which the introduction of the ”Take back the economy” refers to in passing – and to which I keep on returning myself.

So for this occasion, I re-introduce myself  as kitchen gardener & rainwater harvester but also as the Director of FIIA, Feminist Institute of Foreign Affairs – a shadow institute to the other FIIA (Finnish Institute of Foreign Affaris) that I created at the end of 2014 when I had become an unemployed, increasingly frustrated, feminist academic: at that time mainly being frustrated how little the mainstream international relations, and political economy include was able to cope with feminism and feminist scholars, theorizing that departs from mansplaining and all-male networks, associations and knowledge production practices – FIIA is just one example of pop up – platforms and forums that me and my feminist, colleagues have invented over the past years as alternatives: spaces for sharing, caring and building a community.

And maybe as a result of governing and self-governing, I am also here rather accidentally and literally, in rather gendered ways: I offered the organisers my voluntary input to advertise the event but was invited to provide comments – for which I thank Pieta and Tuomo. I take this chance as a possibility of exploring the feminist underpinnings, or some of them, of the community economics.

 

“Crisis of neoliberalism runs deep” Kate Bedford and Shirin Rai wrote in 2010 in introduction of special issue of feminist political economy in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture & Society. Further the same year Andrea Cornwall and Nana Akua Anyidoho in special issue on “Introduction: Women’s Empowerment: Contentions and contestations” of Development Journal warned of the increasing trend of women’s ”lite empowerment”: the tendency of development, and financial industry to take women as rational economic subjects into their focus – finally, some would say!

Slogans like ”gender equality as smart economics” or ”business case for gender equality” which in turn in the Finnish context has meant critical reflection – amongst feminist scholars, and activists – of the price of co-operation/collaboration/co-optation into ”state feminism” – the forms of feminisms that consist of the formal government policies such as gender equality programs and ”gender impact asssments” and so on – and which increasingly should be relabelled as ”market feminisms”.

Current mainstream European conservative political context, seems to be driven by the agenda of austerity, market feminism, welfare chauvinism and gender essentialism, antifeminism, and fear of loosing the authentic ”Finnish” or ”European” culture which and its women in particular need protection. Factor in climate crisis – questions of commoning, economic crisis – questions of wealth distribution, and the European fortress and human lives lost at its shores.These are just some contexts from which books like “The End of Capitalism (1996), A Postcapitalist Politics (2006) and Take Back the Economy (2013) cry urgency.

The basic principle of feminist political economy, the acknowledgement and recognition of”diverse economies” of everydays (for all humans, all genders and their multitudes included), , challenges the capitalist/developmentalist logics that render economy as capitalism, and women as rational economic subjects and feminine as a desired ”becoming subject”, as Gibson writes.

Turning the focus on the multitudes and diversity, according to her,

  • Makes such forms that resist these logics visibile
  • Shows the ignorance of complexity and multitudes of lives
  • Allows new focus on opportunities and directions of non-capitalist economy that are transformative

To me some core feminist theories are at the core of diverse economies thinking: gender, feminism, sexuality, race – bell hooks, Judith Butler, Eve Sedgwick. Although I have not consulted the community economics collective in my own earlier works studying politics of post-disaster and post-conflict reconstruction through ethnography, life histories and collective film documentarism in Aceh, Indonesia and for the next 5 years in Gujarat, India, what “ethical dynamics”, as Gibson calls it, means a focus to subversive sites, cracks that open possibilities or what Tanya Li calls practice of politics.

To take diverse economies seriously, means number of things – you can think of this methodologically, philosophically, as a way of life, as an ethical approach to others, or even as intersubjective way of becoming together:

  1. Openness, new possibilities – new practices of self and politics of subject
  2. Pluralism – going beyond binaries, embrasing “in a process”, unfinishedness
  3. Place-based (economic) politics – multitudinal forms that feminism can take
  4. Acknowledgement of inequalities, but not as static, but as something that need to be mobilized and dealt with
  5. Stripping down hierarcies that close possibilities for engagement: anyone can do this and as such, experiments, pilots or cases are there to be learned from, not to be “put in place”
  6. No prejudgement: which requires situatedness, contextualisation, and further to be attentative and mindful – listening instead of prescribing and explaining

So I conclude with 4 broad questions and comments:

  1. On feminisms
  • What kinds of feminist paths have you taken between 1996-2013/now – what forms does it take – how does ageing, gaining a name change the paths, what do different collaborations (with femnists and non-feminists) do to your work
  • How does engaging with the majority world has changed your feminism, or take on the possibilities of collective economics – and in particular the changes that are needed in the minority world

Then to follow, as to reiterate that engendering alternative economics intimately also is about, decolonializing, de-whitening these spaces that we occupy

  1. On the Community of Community Economics

Bina Agarwal has recently made an argument, based on her study of community forestry groups in India that there is a need to focus on intra-group dynamics, processes of group formation, democratic deliberation – neglected aspects, she argues, in social and solidarity economy (where the focus, according to her has been on interaction with outside actors)

– she raises specific questions of gender and class, and In Indian context in particular the question of caste and religion.

Agarwal, Bina. 2015. The power of numbers in gender dynamics illustrations from community forestry groups. Journal of Peasant Studies 42: 1-20.

How to deal with the class privilege? Some examples from my own everyday:

  • Community-supported agriculture intiative by the “good neighbourhood” in the “bad neighbourhood”: after number of years of farming, very little interaction with the surrounding neighbourhood – much more connections to the other CSA/shared economy communities, transitional volunteerism and so on
  • Capital region: how can we resist the dominance of Helsinki/affluent/educated class in what we do?
  1. Anti-feminism, malesplaining – simply put: how to tackle these dynamics?
  1. Neolibral university/institutionalised forms of knowledge and speed we work
  • Is there a way to resist neoliberal research demands to be always available, conduct fast-track analysis, co-opt crisis talk, and take part in social media -hysteria?
  • Increasingly the connectedness of these make being academic incresingly difficult: Economy – education – research –  university as machine. Can you say some examples from your own everyday how alternatives are created to sustain the momentum for Making Other Worlds Possible in our knowledge practices – just to keep our spirits alive?
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Other face of Helsinki Peace Process: Aceh 10 years later

MARJAANA JAUHOLA / Academy of Finland Research Fellow, University of Helsinki // August 8th, 2015

The 15th of August marks the ten-year anniversary of the signature ceremony of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between the Government of Indonesia and Aceh independence movement GAM as a result of the peace negotiation process facilitated by the former president of Finland, Martti Ahtisaari. President Ahtisaari was awarded the Nobel Peace Price in 2008 for his efforts to resolve international conflicts on several continents for over more than three decades. The Aceh peace negotiation, known as Helsinki Peace Process, has gained international recognition. It is used as an example of a successful third-party mediation and a flag ship peace process to promote Finnish peace mediation skills internationally. Measured with certain parameters, Helsinki Peace Process can be considered as successful: number of hostilities has dropped, former ex-combatants are demobilised and disarmed according to the agreement, Aceh has held number of successful elections, and former combatants have transformed into politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen.

However, when analysed from the perspective of gendered impacts, the conclusions of the success differ greatly. Acehnese women’s activists invited to take part in the global review process of the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325), also known as ‘women, peace and security’, in Kathmandu in February 2015 reviewed the peace process less optimistically: women’s needs and concerns have been marginalized. Gendered impacts of the both conflict and the peace process have a number of negative impacts into the everyday of Acehnese. International humanitarian aid in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 and the Helsinki Peace Process in 2005 has fuelled severe new forms of political struggle that use the rhetoric of respectability and Acehnese identity – utilizing the special autonomy status granted for Aceh in the peace process to challenging Indonesian constitution, legal and political system.

Gendered violence continues to be normalised in post-conflict Aceh. Violent acts have been targeted to religious, ethnic and gender and sexual minorities, but also increasingly towards female human rights defenders, and even women’s and gender studies lecturers. Labelling women activists as agents of West has further created divides between women’s groups and hindered grassroots solidarity work.

A new armed group, formed by ex-combatants of GAM over the last year, targets the current political elites – their former comrades – through its violent acts. The group justifies their actions with the evidence of lost promises and missed opportunities of peace building: political and economic development in Aceh after the Helsinki Peace Process has not been able to reduce the rampant poverty, Aceh is one of the most corrupt provinces of Indonesia and many former ex-combatants, including the female Inong Balee combatants and conflict-affected civilians still wait the materialization of promises made in Helsinki in 2005. This includes the establishment of human rights court and truth and reconciliation commission, and stabilisation of economic development and sustainable livelihoods.

This autumn marks another anniversary. The UN Security Council will assess the implementation of the UNSCR 1325 globally. The Finnish contribution to the implementation of the resolution, and the peace in Aceh, should be critically reviewed from these perspectives and all parties and supporters of the Helsinki Peace Process should ensure that the negotiated result in Helsinki will fulfil expectations of Acehnese people – especially those of women and varying minorities – of the non-discriminatory, nonviolent and prosperous peace.