The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Conflict

Traditionally, much of the work studying war and conflict has focused on men. Men commonly appear as soldiers, commanders, casualties, and civilians. Women, by contrast, are invisible as combatants, and, when seen, are typically pictured as victims. The field of war and conflict studies is changing: more recently, scholars of war and conflict have paid increasing notice to men as a gendered category and given sizeable attention to women's multiple roles in conflict and post-conflict settings.

The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Conflict focuses on the multidimensionality of gender in conflict, yet it also prioritizes the experience of women, given both the changing nature of war and the historical de-emphasis on women's experiences. Today's wars are not staged encounters involving formal armies, but societal wars that operate at all levels, from house to village to city. Women are necessarily involved at each level. Operating from this basic intellectual foundation, the editors have arranged the volume into seven core sections: the theoretical foundations of the role of gender in violent conflicts; the sources for studying contemporary conflict; the conflicts themselves; the post-conflict process; institutions and actors; the challenges presented by the evolving nature of war; and, finally, a substantial set of case studies from across the globe. Genuinely comprehensive, this Handbook will not only serve as an authoritative overview of this massive topic, it will set the research agenda for years to come.

Fionnuala Ni Aolain holds the Robina Chair in Law, Public Policy and Society at the University of Minnesota Law School and is concurrently Professor of Law & Associate Director at Ulster University's Transitional Justice Institute (Belfast). Her book Law in Times of Crisis with Oren Gross (CUP 2006) was awarded ASIL's Certificate of Merit for creative scholarship (2007). She is co-author of On the Frontlines: Gender, War and the Post Conflict Process with Naomi Chan and Dina Haynes (OUP 2011). Ni Aolain was appointed by the UN Secretary-General as Special Expert on promoting gender equality in times of conflict and peace-making (2003). She has served as Expert to the ICC Trust Fund for Victims (2015), and Consultant to UN Women and OHCHR on a Study on Reparations for Conflict Related Sexual Violence (2013). She was nominated twice by the Irish Government as Judge to the European Court of Human Rights (2004 & 2007). She is Board Chair of the Open Society's Women' Program, and serves on the Board of the Center for Victims of Torture and the Georgetown Institute for Women Peace and Security.

Naomi Cahn is the Harold H. Greene Professor at George Washington University Law School. Her research and writing focus on gender issues in both domestic and international law. She first co-taught a "Women and International Law" course in 1992, at Georgetown University Law Center. With Fionnuala Ni Aolain and Dina Francesca Haynes, she is the co-author of On the Frontlines (OUP 2011). She has written or co-written numerous other books and articles, including Marriage Markets: How Inequality is Remaking the American Family (OUP 2014)(with Professor June Carbone).

Dina Francesca Haynes is Professor of Law at New England Law, Boston, where she teaches courses related to migration, refugees and human rights, as well as human trafficking and constitutional law. She has published numerous books, chapters and articles, including Deconstructing the Reconstruction: Human Rights and the Rule of Law in Postwar BiH (Ashgate 2008), and On the Frontlines (OUP 2011) with Fionnuala Ni Aolain and Naomi Cahn. Prior to teaching law she served as Protection Officer with the UN High Commissioner of Refugees, Human Rights Officer with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Director General of the Human Rights Department of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Nahla Valji is the Senior Gender Adviser in the Executive Office of the UN Secretary General. She was formerly the Deputy Chief, Peace and Security in UN Women's headquarters in New York, where she led at different points the organization's work on peacekeeping, peace negotiations, countering violent extremism, transitional justice, and rule of law, involving both global programming and policy work, particularly with regards to the Security Council. During this time, she headed the Secretariat for the Global Study on implementation of resolution 1325, a comprehensive study requested by the Security Council for the 15-year review of women, peace and security. Following the completion of the Global Study review, she headed the secretariats of the resulting Security Council mechanism the Informal Expert Group on Women, Peace and Security (established by resolution 2242) and a new pooled funding mechanism on women's engagement in peace, security and humanitarian assistance. Prior to joining the UN she worked in South Africa where she founded and managed the International Journal of Transitional Justice and led the regional transitional justice work of the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation including the African Transitional Justice Research Network and joint work with the African Union.