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How is rape a weapon of war?: feminist international relations, modes of critical explanation and the study of wartime sexual violence
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-08, 12:19 authored by Paul KirbyRape is a weapon of war. This now common claim reveals wartime sexual violence as a social act marked by gendered power. But this consensus also obscures important, and frequently unacknowledged, differences in ways of understanding and explaining it. This article opens these differences to analysis. It interprets feminist accounts of wartime sexual violence in terms of modes of critical explanation and differentiates three modes – of instrumentality, unreason and mythology – which implicitly structure different understandings of how rape might be a weapon of war. These modes shape political and ethical projects and so impact not only on questions of scholarly content but also on the ways in which we attempt to mitigate and abolish war rape. Exposing these disagreements opens up new possibilities for the analysis of war rape.
History
Publication status
- Published
File Version
- Accepted version
Journal
European Journal of International RelationsISSN
1354-0661Publisher
SAGE PublicationsExternal DOI
Issue
4Volume
19Page range
797-821Department affiliated with
- International Relations Publications
Notes
Online First PublicationFull text available
- Yes
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2012-09-05First Open Access (FOA) Date
2012-09-05First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date
2012-09-03Usage metrics
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