Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T19:04:40.107Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

International Human Rights, Gender-Based Violence, and Local Discourses of Abuse in Postconflict Liberia: A Problem of “Culture”?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 October 2013

Sharon Abramowitz  and
Mary H. Moran
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

In this article we draw on three years of ethnographic observation of postconflict humanitarian intervention in Liberia to consider the process whereby global efforts in the areas of gender-based violence (GBV) and human rights are interacting with local debates over kinship, entitlement, personal rights, and social responsibility. This article draws upon Liberian narratives, complaints, and efforts to regulate, in a national context, social norms and behavior in regard to gender-based violence issues in postconflict life while also engaging with an ongoing international human rights discourse on the subject of GBV. Our ethnography takes a multiscalar approach to give a sense of the process, multiple discourses, and dialectics of power involved in this issue, and to demonstrate how the definition of “the GBV problem” in Liberia, the target of complex GBV interventions, is different from the conception held by agencies, governmental ministries, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that are responsible for implementing global mandates.

Résumé:

Résumé:

Dans cet article, nous nous appuyons sur trois ans d'observation ethnographique des interventions humanitaires après la guerre civile au Liberia pour examiner la relation entre les efforts globaux dans les domaines de la violence contre les femmes et des droits de l'homme, et les débats locaux sur les questions de parenté, de droit commun et individuel, et de responsabilité sociale. Cet article se base sur des récits locaux, des plaintes déposées, et sur les efforts de régulation au niveau national des normes sociales et des comportements se rapportant aux problèmes de violence perpétrée contre les femmes dans la vie quotidienne d'après-guerre, tout en se rapportant à la discussion internationale en cours sur les droits de l'homme dans le contexte de la violence contre les femmes. Notre point de vue ethnographique se situe à plusieurs niveaux pour offrir une vue générale du processus, des discours multiples, et de la dialectique du pouvoir impliqués dans cette question, et pour démontrer que la définition appliquée au “problème de la violence contre les femmes” au Liberia, sujet à des interventions complexes sur ce problème, est différente des notions perçues par les agences d'intervention, les ministères du gouvernement, et les ONG chargés de mettre en place des mandats globaux pour faire face au problème.

Type
ASR Forum: The Case of Gender-Based Violence: Assessing the Impact of International Human Rights Rhetoric on African Lives
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 55 , Issue 2 , September 2012 , pp. 119 - 146
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aboagye, F. B., and Bah, A. M. S.. 2004. Liberia at a Crossroads: A Preliminary Look at the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) and the Protection of Civilians. Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies No. 95 (November).Google Scholar
Abramowitz, Sharon. 2009. “Psychosocial Liberia: Managing Suffering in Post-Conflict Life.” Ph.D. diss, Harvard University.Google Scholar
Abramowitz, Sharon. 2010. “Trauma and Humanitarian Translation in Liberia: The Tale of Open Mole.” Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry 34: 353–79.Google Scholar
Abu-Lughod, Lila. 2006. “Writing Against Culture.” In Feminist Anthropology: A Reader, edited by Lewin, Ellen, 153–69. Londo: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Agamben, G. 1998. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
African Women and Peace Support Group. 2004. Liberian Women Peacemakers: Fighting for the Right to Be Seen, Heard, and Counted. Trenton, N J.: Africa World Press.Google Scholar
Amnesty International. 2008. “Rehabilitation and Reintegration” in Liberia: A Flawed Post-War Process Discriminates against Women and Girls. London: Amnesty International.Google Scholar
Badmus, I. 2009. “Explaining Women's Roles in the West African Tragic Triplet: Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Côte d'Ivoire in Comparative Perspective.” Journal of Alternative Perspectives in the Social Sciences 1(3): 808–39.Google Scholar
Basu, Amrita. 1995. The Challenge of Local Feminisms: Women's Movements in Global Perspective. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Basu, Amrita, ed. 2010. Women's Movements in the Global Era: The Power of Local Feminisms. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Black, R. 2009. “Mainstreaming Resolution 1325? Evaluating the Impact of Security Council Resolution 1325 on Country-Specific UN Resolutions.” Journal of Military and Strategic Studies 11 (4): 1–30.Google Scholar
Bledsoe, Caroline. 1980. Women and Marriage in Kpelle Society. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Burrowes, Carl Patrick. 2004. Power and Press Freedom inLiberia, 1930–1970. Trenton, N J.: Africa World Press.Google Scholar
Coulter, Chris. 2009. Bush Wives and Girl Soldiers: Women's Lives through War and Peace in Sierra Leone. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
D'Azevedo, Warren. 1962. “Some Historical Problems in the Delineation of the Central West Atlantic Region.” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 96: 512–38.Google Scholar
Disney, Abigail, and Reticker, Gini. 2008. Pray the Devil Back to Hell. Fork Films.Google Scholar
Donnelly, Jack. 2002. Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press Google Scholar
Ellis, Stephen. 1999. The Mask of Anarchy: The Destruction of Liberia and the Religious Dimensions of an African Civil War. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Ferme, Mariane C. 2001. The Underneath of Things: Violence, History and the Everyday in Sierra Leone. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Fuest, Veronika. 2008. “‘This Is the Time to Get in Front’: Changing Roles and Opportunities for Women in Liberia.” African Affairs 107/427: 201–24.Google Scholar
Fuest, Veronika. 2009. “Liberia's Women Acting for Peace: Collective Action in a War-Affected Country.” In Movers and Shakers: Social Movements in Africa, edited by Ellis, Stephen, van Kessel, Ineke, and Kessel, Wilhelmina Maria Johanna, 114–37. Brill: African Dynamics Series.Google Scholar
Gaye, A., Klugman, J., and Kovacevic, M.. 2010. “Measuring Key Disparities in Human Development: The Gender Inequality Index. Human Development Research Paper2010/46. New York: United Nations Development Programme.Google Scholar
George, Rose. 2004. A Life Removed: Hunting for Refuge in theModem World. New York: Penguin.Google Scholar
Gibbs, James. 1962. “Poro Values and Courtroom Procedures in a Kpelle Chiefdom.” Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 18: 341–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibbs, James. 1963. “The Kpelle Moot: A Therapeutic Model of the Informal Settlement of Disputes.” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 33: 1–11 Google Scholar
Hodson, Igor. 2007. UNMIL: International Engagement in Addressing Violence against Women. London: ActionAid.Google Scholar
Hodgson, Dorothy. 2011. Gender and Culture at the Limits of Rights. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Honwana, Alcinda. 2006. Child Soldiers in Africa. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Ignatieff, Michael. 2003. Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC). 2005. Guidelines on Gender-Based Violence Interventions in Humanitarian Settings: Focusing on Prevention of and Response to Sexual Violence in Emergencies (Field Test Version). Geneva: Inter-Agency Standing Committee.Google Scholar
Kuper, Adam. 1988. The Invention of Primitive Society: Transformations of an Illusion. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Lekskes, Jeannette, van Hooren, Susan, and de Beus, Jos. 2007. “Appraisal of Psycho-social Interventions in Liberia.” Intervention 5 (1): 18–26.Google Scholar
Levitt, Peggy, and Merry, Sally. 2009. “Vernacularization on the Ground: Local Uses of Global Women's Rights in Peru, China, India, and the United States.” Global Networks 9 (4): 441–61.Google Scholar
Massaquoi, W. “Women and Post-Conflict Development: A Case Study on Liberia.” M.S. thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Google Scholar
Merry, Sally Engle. 2006. Human Rights and Gender Violence: Translating International Law into Local Justice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Merry, Sally Engle. 2008. Gender Violence: A Cultural Perspective. London: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Moran, Mary H. 1989. “Collective Action and the Representation of African Women: A Liberian Case Study.” Feminist Studies 15: 443–60.Google Scholar
Moran, Mary H. 1990. Civilized Women: Gender and Prestige in Southeastern Liberia. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Moran, Mary H. 2006. Liberia: The Violence of Democracy. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Moran, Mary H. 2010. “Gender, Militarism, and Peace-Building: Projects of the Postconflict Moment.” Annual Review of Anthropology 39: 261–74.Google Scholar
Moran, Mary H., and Pitcher, M. Anne. 2004. “The Basket Case and the Poster Child: Explaining the End of Civil Conflicts in Liberia and Mozambique.” Third World Quarterly 25: 501–20.Google Scholar
Morris, Jennie B. 2005. “The Establishment of the Ministry of Gender and Development: A Case Study of the Changing Role of Women in Liberia” M.A. thesis, University of Massachusetts Lowell.Google Scholar
Ndinga-Muvumba, A. 2010. “Who Said It Was Simple? Implementing 1325.” ACCORD: The African Center for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes. Issue 2 (October).Google Scholar
Okerere, G. 2006. “Violence against Women in Africa.” African Journal of Criminology and Justice Studies 2 (1): 1–35.Google Scholar
Okonjo, Kamene. 1976. “The Dual Sex Political System in Operation: Igbo Women and Community Politics in Midwestern Nigeria.” In Women in Africa, edited by Hafkin, Nancy and Bay, Edna G., 45–58. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Oyewumi, Oyeronke. 1996. The Invention of Women: Making African Sense of Western Gender Discourses. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Pandolfi, M., and Fassin, D., 2010. Contemporary States of Emergency: The Politics of Military and Humanitarian Interventions. New York: Zone Books.Google Scholar
Pajibo, Ezekiel. 2008. “Traditional Justice Mechanisms: The Liberian Case.” Stockholm: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance.Google Scholar
Povinelli, Elizabeth A. 2002. The Cunning of Recognition: Indigenous Alterities and the Making of Australian Multiculturalism. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Powers, W. D. 2006. BlueClay People: Seasons on Africa's Fragile Edge. New York: Blooms-bury USA.Google Scholar
Risse, Thomas, Ropp, Stephen C., and Sikkink, Kathryn. 1999. The Power of Human Rights: International Norms and Domestic Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rubinstein, R. A. 2005. “Intervention and Culture: An Anthropological Approach to Peace Operations.” Security Dialogue 36 (4): 527–44.Google Scholar
Sawyer, Amos. 2005. Beyond Plunder: Toward Democratic Governance in Liberia. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner.Google Scholar
Schia, N., and de Carvalho, B.. 2009. “Addressing Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in Liberia.” Conflict Trends 3: 26–33.Google Scholar
Scully, Pamela. 2011. “Gender, History, and Human Rights.” In Gender and Culture at the Limit of Rights, edited by Hodgson, Dorothy, 17–31. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shaw, Rosalind. 2002. Memories of the Slave Trade: Ritual and the Historical Imagination in Sierra Leone. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Shaw, Rosalind, Waldorf, Lars, and Hazan, Pierre, eds. 2010. Localizing Transitional Justice: Interventions and Priorities After Mass Violence. Stanford Studies in Human Rights. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Sirleaf, Ellen Johnson. 2009. This Child Will Be Great: Memoir of a Remarkable Life by Africa's First Woman President. New York: Harper Collins.Google Scholar
Specht, I. 2006. Red Shoes: Experiences of Girl-Combatants in Liberia. Geneva: International Labour Office, Programme on Crisis Response and Reconstruction.Google Scholar
Sriram, C., Martin-Ortega, O., and Herman, J., eds. 2010. Peacebuilding and Rule of Law in Africa: Just Peace? New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Swiss, S. 1998. “Violence against Women during the Liberian Civil Conflict.” JAMA: The Journal ofthe American Medical Association 279 (8): 625–29.Google Scholar
Terry, Fiona (2002). Condemned to Repeat: The Paradox of Humanitarian Action. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Utas, Mats. 2003. “Sweet Battlefields: Youth and the Liberian Civil War.” Ph.D. diss., Uppsala University, Sweden.Google Scholar