Current Research

My current research agenda revolves around 3 main research interests:

1) The nexus between Conflict, Climate Change, and Gender for Sustaining Peace

I am interested in studying how conflict prevention works in an era of climate catastrophe and how gendered norms and power structures increase or mitigate the likelihood of climate-related insecurities. From a top-down perspective, I seek to understand what the potential of new international frameworks and interventions linking conflict, climate change and gender equality is for the development of transformative gender-sensitive national policies on land, natural resources and environmental justice in post-war societies. And who can take advantage of new rights and opportunities and who remains marginalized. From a bottom-up perspective, I study how indigenous communities experience climate-related security risks, and how they develop resilient practices to prevent conflict, displacement and worsening of livelihood conditions.

2) The politics of expertise and knowledge production on gender, security and development policies

Here, I am not only interested in studying performances of authority, authenticity, and expertise but also in understanding how devices, the tools/instruments through which knowledge is produced (such as UN reports, autobiographies of ex-combatants, but also documentaries on rape as a weapon of war), affect knowledge production and its practices. And how these instruments of technocratic conflict management are linking more and more sustainable development as an important part of the final solution for conflicts.

3) The diffusion of international gender norms and advocacy networks

By studying the different meanings attributed to gender security in post-war settings and by foregrounding the creative and innovative capabilities of people in the periphery with respect to ideas, policies, and institutions of global significance, my research has the aim of challenging Western-centric ideas on the role of transnational advocacy networks, norm entrepreneurs and socialization mechanisms in shaping norm diffusion processes in postwar countries and to study local contestations and appropriations of these norms by local actors, instead of regarding them as passive recipients of ‘Western’ templates that are transferred to and/or imposed on them by Western actors.