This article investigates how war and occupation disrupt and produce new gender norms. It explores civilian masculinities and the ways in which masculinities are impacted by conflict and insecurity. Focusing on the West Bank, we argue that insecurity and occupation create the conditions for masculinity nostalgia, or a yearning for a set of gender norms and relations linked to fantasies of a secure, ‘traditional’ and ordered past. Masculinity nostalgia builds on conceptions of thwarted masculinity and the ways in which individuals are held accountable to gender norms. The article draws on interviews with Palestinians to highlight how masculinity nostalgia is associated with three particular identities: father, breadwinner and landowner. We demonstrate that Palestinian civilians lament the ways in which the occupation has impacted men’s ability to fulfil such archetypical identities, at the same time as they reaffirm the value and legitimacy of these identities. We argue that peace and security are often assumed to be dependent upon ‘the return’ of men to their presumed rightful places at the head of households and as economic providers. In turn, masculinity nostalgia emphasizes the ways in which yearnings for peace and security can be interwoven with yearnings for patriarchal gendered orders.
<p>To date, men as gendered beings have largely remained absent from the international literature on armed conflict and peacebuilding. In general, the literature omits men‘s gendered experiences as civilians, non-combatants and peacebuilders and instead, men remain confined by stereotypes of violence, soldiering and war-making. In this thesis, I aim to break these silences by producing a qualitative analysis of discourses of men and masculinities within semi-structured interviews conducted with fourteen Palestinian peacebuilders in the West Bank. This analysis explores the impacts of the ongoing occupation and armed conflict on non-combat related Palestinian masculinities, and further, how men and masculinities are thought to interact with local peacebuilding initiatives. Through the use of feminist critical discourse analysis, this study has uncovered a number of key themes relevant to gender and peacebuilding theory and practice. Firstly, it found that the ongoing conflict has resulted in a 'thwarting' of West Bank masculinities in which men are understood as finding it increasingly difficult to live up to social expectations of their traditional roles and identities. Secondly, this study found that men and masculinities have become somewhat estranged from civil society, informal peacebuilding schemes. Based on my findings, these initiatives seem to centre around feminised narratives that emphasise women's peacebuilding capacities, while masculinities and the peacebuilding roles of men are overlooked. Nevertheless, this thesis also presents the notion that men are actively involved in the nonviolent resistance movement within the West Bank, which opens up room for a novel, alternative understanding of 'masculinised' peacebuilding in Palestine. In sum, this study articulates the need to 'take masculinities seriously' in the pursuit of more inclusive and effective peacebuilding and post-conflict development practice.</p>
<p>To date, men as gendered beings have largely remained absent from the international literature on armed conflict and peacebuilding. In general, the literature omits men‘s gendered experiences as civilians, non-combatants and peacebuilders and instead, men remain confined by stereotypes of violence, soldiering and war-making. In this thesis, I aim to break these silences by producing a qualitative analysis of discourses of men and masculinities within semi-structured interviews conducted with fourteen Palestinian peacebuilders in the West Bank. This analysis explores the impacts of the ongoing occupation and armed conflict on non-combat related Palestinian masculinities, and further, how men and masculinities are thought to interact with local peacebuilding initiatives. Through the use of feminist critical discourse analysis, this study has uncovered a number of key themes relevant to gender and peacebuilding theory and practice. Firstly, it found that the ongoing conflict has resulted in a 'thwarting' of West Bank masculinities in which men are understood as finding it increasingly difficult to live up to social expectations of their traditional roles and identities. Secondly, this study found that men and masculinities have become somewhat estranged from civil society, informal peacebuilding schemes. Based on my findings, these initiatives seem to centre around feminised narratives that emphasise women's peacebuilding capacities, while masculinities and the peacebuilding roles of men are overlooked. Nevertheless, this thesis also presents the notion that men are actively involved in the nonviolent resistance movement within the West Bank, which opens up room for a novel, alternative understanding of 'masculinised' peacebuilding in Palestine. In sum, this study articulates the need to 'take masculinities seriously' in the pursuit of more inclusive and effective peacebuilding and post-conflict development practice.</p>
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