I’m a feminist researcher and writer working at the intersection of gender studies and peace/conflict studies. I like to use photography in connection with research and activism.
In academic terms, I’m a visiting professor in the Department of Sociology at City University London and an honorary professor in the Centre for the Study of Women and Gender, University of Warwick. Politically, I’m involved in the international feminist antimilitarist networks Women in Black against War and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.
Since 1995 I’ve been working closely with women peace activists in conflictual countries, doing qualitative action-research. In this way, I’ve made a sequence of studies of particular women’s organizations working across ethno-national lines in Northern Ireland, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Israel/Palestine and Cyprus – organizations whose work I also try to support. More recently I have made a study of women’s activism against war, worldwide, published in 2007 as 'From Where We Stand: War, Women’s Activism and Feminist Analysis', Zed Books.
Some of my earlier publications on these themes are: 'The Space Between Us: Negotiating Gender and National Identities in Conflict' - this features women’s projects of cooperation in N.Ireland, B-H and Israel/Palestine; 'The Post-War Moment: Militaries, Masculinities and International Peacekeeping' (co-edited with Dubravka Zarkov) which has chapters looking at the Netherlands as a ‘peace-keeping’ country and Bosnia as a ‘peace-kept’ country; and 'The Line: Women, Partition and the Gender Order in Cyprus', in which feature women resisting partitions – of ethnicity and gender (see ‘Publications – Books’).
My current research, 2008-11 involves a study of antiwar, antimilitarist and peace movements in several countries and contexts. I am hoping this will be published in late 2011 under the title 'Antimilitarism: Political and Gender Dynamics of Movements to End War and Redefine Peace'.
Prior to 1995 my research involved local governance; and feminist gender studies of the labour process, the sexual division of labour, and change in the workplace; men, masculinity and skill; transformative change in trade unions and employing organizations; and the gender relations of technology.
Some of my publications from this earlier period are 'The Local State; 'Brothers; Machinery of Dominance'; 'Gender and Technology in the Making'; and 'In the Way of Women' (see ‘Publications - Books’).
