Top
Skip to Content
LOGO(small) - Queen's University Belfast
  • Our x-twitter
LOGO(large) - Queen's University Belfast

The Senator George J. Mitchell Institute
For Global Peace, Security And Justice

  • Home
  • About us
  • Research and Impact
    • Research Areas
    • Research Impact
    • Publications
    • Digital Events & Public Engagement
    • Blogs
    • GFA25
  • Podcasts
    • Taliban Turbans and The Smartphone
    • Mitchell Institute Conversations Podcast
    • The Partition of Ireland: Causes and Consequences
    • Postgraduate MPod Podcast
  • People
    • Academic Staff
    • GRI Fellows
    • Research-Funded Posts
    • Visiting Scholars
    • Professors Emeriti
    • Honorary Professors
    • Honorary Professors of Practice
    • International Advisory Board
  • Study
    • LINAS Doctoral Training Programme
    • LINCS Doctoral Training Programme
    • MA Conflict Transformation and Social Justice
    • Previous Scholarships
  • News
  • Events
  • Annual Reviews
  • Policies
  • Contact us
  • Home
  • About us
  • Research and Impact
    • Research Areas
    • Research Impact
    • Publications
    • Digital Events & Public Engagement
    • Blogs
    • GFA25
  • Podcasts
    • Taliban Turbans and The Smartphone
    • Mitchell Institute Conversations Podcast
    • The Partition of Ireland: Causes and Consequences
    • Postgraduate MPod Podcast
  • People
    • Academic Staff
    • GRI Fellows
    • Research-Funded Posts
    • Visiting Scholars
    • Professors Emeriti
    • Honorary Professors
    • Honorary Professors of Practice
    • International Advisory Board
  • Study
    • LINAS Doctoral Training Programme
    • LINCS Doctoral Training Programme
    • MA Conflict Transformation and Social Justice
    • Previous Scholarships
  • News
  • Events
  • Annual Reviews
  • Policies
  • Contact us
  • Our x-twitter
In This Section
  • Home
  • About us
  • Research and Impact
  • Podcasts
  • People
  • Study
  • News
  • Events
  • Annual Reviews
  • Policies
  • Contact us

  • Home
  • News

News

From Intersectional to Abolitionist

28 January, 2025

Decolonial, Feminist and Anti-Militarist Theorising on Peacekeeping

On Thursday 16 January, Professor Marsha Henry gave the Doing Gender Series Lecture at the University of Utrecht, in the Netherlands.

Organised by the Netherlands Research School of Gender Studies in cooperation with her partners, the Doing Gender Lecture Series stress the importance of doing gender work combined with an active involvement in the practice of gender theory and research.  The concept of Doing Gender supports a hands-on approach to gender issues in the sense of social and political engagement with the new forms of gender inequalities that are taking shape in the world today.

In her Lecture, ‘From Intersectional to Abolitionist: Decolonial, Feminist and Anti-Militarist Theorising on Peacekeeping’, Marsha argued for the recovery of sidelined critical theoretical contributions such as feminist and postcolonial insights in peacekeeping studies.

Marsha focuses on feminist, postcolonial, and anti-militarist frameworks to expose peacekeeping as an epistemic power project in need of abolition.  Drawing from Black Feminist Thought and postcolonial and critical race theories, she showed how contemporary peacekeeping produces gender and racial inequalities through militarised strategies.

Henry uses an intersectional analysis based on ethnographic fieldwork in peacekeeping missions and training centres around the world. She demonstrates how the focus on peacekeeping’s policies has obscured its underlying geopolitical agenda, allowing its harms to persist unquestioned by mainstream scholarship. She reveals that peacekeeping, often portrayed as a benign and apolitical project, is deeply entangled in justifying policy and global governance.

The Lecture was chaired by Sandra Ponzanesi, Full Professor and Chair of Media, Gender and Postcolonial Studies at the Department of Media and Culture Studies, University of Utrecht.

 

Professor Marsha Henry

Professor Henry is the Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton Chair in Women, Peace, Security and Justice.  Her research is concerned with the gendered and racialised politics of violence; militarisation; global south development; international aid and intervention; and conflict, peace, and security.  She is the author of several books, the latest of which is: The End of Peacekeeping:  Gender, Race, and the Martial Politics of Intervention (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2024).

Marsha has also advised a number of national governments on women’s participation in the armed forces, combatting sexual exploitation and abuse in humanitarian settings, and developing anti-racist and diversity strategies in foreign policy ministries.

Share
Latest News
  • Law, Policy and Practice in Sustaining Peace
    19 May, 2025
  • Professor Kieran McEvoy Takes Up Visiting Scholar Position at Harvard
    19 May, 2025
  • Election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
    16 May, 2025
  • Palestinian Bedouins and the Risk of Forced Displacement
    15 May, 2025
  • Reflections on Kharkiv
    14 May, 2025
The Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice
  • The Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice
  • Home
  • About us
  • Research and Impact
  • Podcasts
  • People
  • Study
  • News
  • Events
  • Annual Reviews
  • Policies
  • Contact us
QUB Logo
Contact Us

The Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice 

Queen's University Belfast
18-19 University Square
Belfast
United Kingdom
BT7 1NN

T: +44 (0) 28 9097 3609 / 1346 
E: mitchell.institute@qub.ac.uk

Quick Links

  • Home
  • Study
  • Research
  • Podcasts
  • Newsletter

Social Media

© Queen's University Belfast 2024
  • Privacy and cookies
  • Website accessibility
  • Freedom of information
  • Modern slavery statement
  • Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
  • University Policies and Procedures
Information
  • Privacy and cookies
  • Website accessibility
  • Freedom of information
  • Modern slavery statement
  • Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
  • University Policies and Procedures

© Queen's University Belfast 2024

Manage cookies