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4 - The Science of UN Mediation

from Part II - Practices

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 December 2024

Catriona Standfield
Affiliation:
University of Massachusetts, Boston
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Summary

Chapter 4 examines how the logic of UN mediation as a science produces and disseminates technical knowledge. It focuses on the practices of conflict analysis and the circulation of ‘best practices’ in implementing the WPS Agenda in Syria and Yemen. The beginning sections argue that conflict analysis produces instrumental knowledge about conflict by fixing actors and issues in a schema that is legible to interveners. It emerges from colonial schemes of knowledge production that diagnose the local sphere as lacking in capacity. As such, ‘gender-sensitive conflict analysis’ – a common tool for implementing the WPS Agenda in UN mediation – is subject to many of the same problems. The remainder of the chapter analyses the UN's institutional learning practices, arguing that its ‘best practice’ case studies of WPS in mediation depoliticise knowledge about gender, position the UN as the protagonist of women’s participation by erasing its own resistance to WPS, and diminish local women’s agency. Crucially, these best practice cases also elide ‘participation’ with ‘consultation’, undermining the WPS Agenda’s call for the meaningful participation of local women in UN mediation.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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  • The Science of UN Mediation
  • Catriona Standfield, University of Massachusetts, Boston
  • Book: The Politics of Women, Peace, and Security in UN Mediation
  • Online publication: 19 December 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009512251.006
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  • The Science of UN Mediation
  • Catriona Standfield, University of Massachusetts, Boston
  • Book: The Politics of Women, Peace, and Security in UN Mediation
  • Online publication: 19 December 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009512251.006
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • The Science of UN Mediation
  • Catriona Standfield, University of Massachusetts, Boston
  • Book: The Politics of Women, Peace, and Security in UN Mediation
  • Online publication: 19 December 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009512251.006
Available formats
×