From Military to Market: Feminist Framings of Private Security, Warfare and Global Militarism.
Warfare and global security operations are increasingly underpinned by market actors. Whereas in the 1990s, private security actors were on the fringes of global security, in the contemporary moment private military and security companies (PMSCs) now maintain a central role in how states and non-state actors pursue security objectives globally. Yet their involvement in war is not neutral. The nature of these companies’ operations, who they employ, and the kinds of (in)security that arises are underpinned by race and gender. It is within this context for which we bring into discussion Dr Amanda Chisholm, senior lecturer in War Studies and author of the newly published book: “The Gendered and Colonial Lives of Gurkhas: From Military to Market” with Professor Cynthia Enloe, eminent feminist scholar in global security and international relations.
Dr Amanda Chisholm and Professor Cynthia Enloe will discuss the general themes of Chisholm’s book and what a feminist framing on privatising warfare looks like.
Date: 5 December, 2022
Time: 12:00 to 14:00
Venue: Dockrill Meeting Room (K6.07)
Speakers:
Dr Amanda Chisholm is a Senior Lecturer researching and teaching on gender and security across both War Studies and Defence Studies. She is also the lead diversity and inclusion representative for the School of Security Studies.
Her research focuses on the privatisation and decentring of global war-making. Her work is located at the nexus of Feminist International Relations, Global Political Economy, and Security Studies. She employs ethnographic methodologies to examine the racial and gendered aspects of private military and security companies’ (PMSCs) global operations. Her work is concerned with how gendered and racial logics sustain difference, assign value and reproduce hierarchies amongst these workforces and the ways in which these security market relations involve household labour. Having recently been awarded an Economic and Social Research Council Future leaders’ grant, her current work looks at issues of (un)ethical recruitment practices in unarmed and armed global South security workforces and households.
Dr Chisholm’s research has appeared in International Feminist Journal of Politics, Security Dialogue, Globalizations, Critical Military Studies and International Political Sociology as well as numerous edited volumes on Private Military and Security Companies, Military Research Methods, Gender and the Military, and Gender and Global Political Economy.
Professor Cynthia Enloe is a feminist writer, theorist, and professor. She is best known for her work on gender and militarism and for her contributions to the field of feminist international relations. She has also had major impact on the field of feminist political geography, in particular feminist geopolitics.
Enloe’s career has included Fulbrights in Malaysia and Guyana, guest professorships in Japan, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Iceland, as well as lectures in Sweden, Norway, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Chile, Vietnam, Korea, Cambodia, Colombia, Bosnia, Turkey, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, and at universities around the U.S. Her writings have been translated into Spanish, Turkish, French, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Swedish, Czech, Icelandic and German. She has published in Ms. Magazine and The Village Voice and appeared on National Public Radio, Al Jazeera, C-Span, and the BBC.
More info can be found here: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/events/from-military-to-market-feminist-framings-of-private-security-warfare-and-global-militarism.
RCIR: Research Centre in International Relations 