Sexualized War Violence

Producing Knowledge in the Field of Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict Research: Objects, Methods, Politics, and Gender Justice Methodology

“…However, such positivist approaches do not necessarily resolve the methodological challenge of "fact-finding" in this field. While qualitative researchers have long acknowledged this difficulty, quantitative and comparative methods confront particular methodological issues in this field, including unreliability of primary data, over-reliance on derivative data, incomplete reporting and data collection, and over-interpretation of data (see Boesten 2017;Davies and True 2015b;Houge 2015;N´ı Aola´in 2014). Scholars working in this positivist tradition acknowledge these problems, and increasingly use mixed method studies (see Cohen 2016;Hoover Green 2018).…”

“…The debates concerning these positions constitute this field, and show the conceptual and political problems structuring knowledge production (Campbell 2004). The analysis of these debates builds on key review essays of research directions and gaps in the field, including Baaz and Stern (2014), Buss (2014b), Cohen, Hoover Green, and Wood (2013), Houge (2015), Ní Aola´in (2014), and Wood (2014). These reviews were written at the time of the rapid expansion of publications in this area and their analysis has been borne out in subsequent research trends.…”

“…However, these terms are often used interchangeably in the literature. For example, the key review essays use "sexualized war violence" (Houge 2015), "wartime rape" (Baaz and Stern 2014), and "sexual violence in conflict" (Buss 2014b) variously throughout. Hoover Green (2012) and Leiby (2012) show how this inconsistency poses considerable difficulties for generalization within and between empirical studies, for aggregation of data from different methods of data collection, and for comparison between studies.…”

“…The first argument contends that conflict-related sexual violence research has focused upon female victims and male perpetrators, with a related neglect of female perpetrators and male victims (Baaz and Stern 2014, 596;Buss 2014b, 13;Houge 2015, 80-81). The second argument contends that conflictrelated sexual violence research has focused upon highly visible conflicts in Rwanda, Yugoslavia, or, more recently, "Africa" (Baaz and Stern 2014, 592, 84;Buss 2014b, 3;Houge 2015). While Baaz, Stern, and Buss situate their discussion in feminist debates concerning the politics of knowledge, more recent scholarship describes these positions as "misconceptions" in the field, which assume that perpetrators are always men, victims are always female, and that sexual violence is a problem of "African" or "ethnic" wars (Cohen, Hoover Green, and Wood 2013, 3, 4, 7).…”

“…The third key debate concerns the use of gender and feminism as analytic categories (Baaz and Stern 2014;Houge 2015;Wood 2014). Two influential positions have emerged within the current literature.…”