Georgina Holmes
I research into norm implementation and practice change in peacekeeping; international institutions; the gendered politics of training and deploying male and female military peacekeepers, and the engagement of small and middle powers in international security governance, focusing on Rwanda, Ghana and the UK.
My PhD thesis was published as the book ‘Women and War in Rwanda: Gender, Media and the Representation of Genocide’ by I.B Tauris in October 2013. The thesis and book examine how gendered narratives about war and genocide are employed by states (the UK, France, the DRC and Rwanda) and non-state actors (the FDLR and the CNDP) to legitimise or to prevent external intervention in the Great Lakes region of Africa. The book challenges the dominant discourse in feminist security studies that Rwandan and Congolese women are made to disappear and reappear within 'western' discourses on 'rape as a weapon of war' and genocide as silent, passive victims. Instead, I emphasize the integral role Rwandan and Congolese women play in the production of mediatized knowledge, examining how they choose to perform when interviewed by International NGO researchers, journalists and documentary film makers, and make the case that African women's agency never fully disappears from view. The new media environment is a 'postcolonial contact zone' and a site of political contestation - and Rwandan and Congolese women and men, including those based in the diaspora, work within and through what I termed (drawing directly from African postcolonial theorist Mudimbe) 'imperial grids of knowledge' to appropriate 'western' narratives about gender, genocide and war for their own political gain, to build legitimacy, or to campaign against conflict and extreme human rights abuses, including sexual violence. In my critique of feminist theorising of rape as a weapon of war, I examine how feminist theorising of genocide and genocide by attrition enriches our understanding of the ways in which communities in the east of Congo experience war – and how Congolese women and men describe their experiences when they engage with ‘western’ outsiders.
Prior to completing my PhD, I worked in public relations and communications for over ten years. I apply my practical knowledge of political communication and organisational change to my theoretical work. I completed an MA in Interdisciplinary Gender Studies (conflict, security and development) at the University of Warwick in 2002, which was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), and was awarded a PhD in International Relations Theory at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).
I have previously taught the following courses:
* The UN and International Order (3rd years, University of Reading)
* Model UN (2nd years, University of Reading)
* MA Gender and Development (SOAS)
* MA African Politics and Government (SOAS)
* BA Gender and Development (3rd Years, SOAS)
* BA International Relations Theory (2nd Years, University of Reading)
* BA International Relations Theory (2nd Years, Royal Holloway)
* BA Comparative Foreign Policy Analysis (2nd years, University of Portsmouth)
* BA Contemporary Issues in Politics
* BA Introduction to International Relations (1st years, Portsmouth)
* BA Conflict and Disaster (2nd years, Portsmouth)
* MA Security Studies (Portsmouth)
* BA Creative Writing (University of Warwick)
My PhD thesis was published as the book ‘Women and War in Rwanda: Gender, Media and the Representation of Genocide’ by I.B Tauris in October 2013. The thesis and book examine how gendered narratives about war and genocide are employed by states (the UK, France, the DRC and Rwanda) and non-state actors (the FDLR and the CNDP) to legitimise or to prevent external intervention in the Great Lakes region of Africa. The book challenges the dominant discourse in feminist security studies that Rwandan and Congolese women are made to disappear and reappear within 'western' discourses on 'rape as a weapon of war' and genocide as silent, passive victims. Instead, I emphasize the integral role Rwandan and Congolese women play in the production of mediatized knowledge, examining how they choose to perform when interviewed by International NGO researchers, journalists and documentary film makers, and make the case that African women's agency never fully disappears from view. The new media environment is a 'postcolonial contact zone' and a site of political contestation - and Rwandan and Congolese women and men, including those based in the diaspora, work within and through what I termed (drawing directly from African postcolonial theorist Mudimbe) 'imperial grids of knowledge' to appropriate 'western' narratives about gender, genocide and war for their own political gain, to build legitimacy, or to campaign against conflict and extreme human rights abuses, including sexual violence. In my critique of feminist theorising of rape as a weapon of war, I examine how feminist theorising of genocide and genocide by attrition enriches our understanding of the ways in which communities in the east of Congo experience war – and how Congolese women and men describe their experiences when they engage with ‘western’ outsiders.
Prior to completing my PhD, I worked in public relations and communications for over ten years. I apply my practical knowledge of political communication and organisational change to my theoretical work. I completed an MA in Interdisciplinary Gender Studies (conflict, security and development) at the University of Warwick in 2002, which was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), and was awarded a PhD in International Relations Theory at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).
I have previously taught the following courses:
* The UN and International Order (3rd years, University of Reading)
* Model UN (2nd years, University of Reading)
* MA Gender and Development (SOAS)
* MA African Politics and Government (SOAS)
* BA Gender and Development (3rd Years, SOAS)
* BA International Relations Theory (2nd Years, University of Reading)
* BA International Relations Theory (2nd Years, Royal Holloway)
* BA Comparative Foreign Policy Analysis (2nd years, University of Portsmouth)
* BA Contemporary Issues in Politics
* BA Introduction to International Relations (1st years, Portsmouth)
* BA Conflict and Disaster (2nd years, Portsmouth)
* MA Security Studies (Portsmouth)
* BA Creative Writing (University of Warwick)
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Books by Georgina Holmes
The book argues that, regardless of marginalisation, people create spaces of liminality where they seek control over their lives by navigating the structures that exclude them. Challenging the false binary of silence as violence and voice as power, the book introduces the idea of an in-between ‘liminal space’ which is created by people to navigate conditions of oppression and move towards a politically stable and inclusive world.
This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of gender studies, international development, peace and conflict studies, politics and international relations, sociology and media studies. It will be an important resource for courses incorporating gender, feminist and postcolonial perspectives.
and changeable gendered systems shaped by the politics of exclusion and
inclusion. Disrupting mainstream analyses in IO studies, scholars apply
diverse and creative research methods and methodological approaches to
examine how institutional change processes take effect in and through
gendered power relations. The aim is to expose and explain the political
consequences gendered processes have within IOs and within international society, while being mindful that formal, institutionalized equality and diversity initiatives can potentially strengthen existing institutional power settlements.
Papers by Georgina Holmes
Keywords
Rwanda, genocide, BBC, British media, war, democracy, British government