Disability Media Studies

In recent times, most arguments put forward in support of a gendered approach to peacemaking and peacebuilding from diverse set of scholars from a variety of disciplines, are instrumental in their approaches. African peace scholars and actors tend to perceive and portray women as instrumental in bringing about sustainable peace, and focusing narrowly on what women can do for peace neglecting the issue of what peace can do for women. The range of peace activities within the overall gendered approach, even a purported genuine approach as understood by the United Nations and other national and International peace community actors often fail to build a sustainable peace as it does not adequately address the fundamental socio-political and economic inequalities created by the global neoliberal structure which also perpetuate violence and conflict. Oftentimes, African women are defined through the lens of their motherly and caregivers' roles while providing the link between these roles and their peace attributes. Despite the fact that these notions are true, the challenge remains in the ways those positive attributes are used as tools to undermine the multifarious involvement of women in peace process. This paper will examine some of the long-standing instrumentalist approaches to African women's involvement in Peacemaking and Peacebuilding processes by discussing extant literatures and also focus on some case studies within African continent. The ways some of these approaches have essentialised women's roles in the society and the challenges arisen therefrom will also be discussed.

In recent times, most arguments put forward in support of a gendered approach to peacemaking and peacebuilding from diverse set of scholars from a variety of disciplines, are instrumental in their approaches. African peace scholars and actors tend to perceive and portray women as instrumental in bringing about sustainable peace, and focusing narrowly on what women can do for peace neglecting the issue of what peace can do for women. The range of peace activities within the overall gendered approach, even a purported genuine approach as understood by the United Nations and other national and International peace community actors often fail to build a sustainable peace as it does not adequately address the fundamental socio-political and economic inequalities created by the global neoliberal structure which also perpetuate violence and conflict. Oftentimes, African women are defined through the lens of their motherly and caregivers' roles while providing the link between these roles and their peace attributes. Despite the fact that these notions are true, the challenge remains in the ways those positive attributes are used as tools to undermine the multifarious involvement of women in peace process. This paper will examine some of the long-standing instrumentalist approaches to African women's involvement in Peacemaking and Peacebuilding processes by discussing extant literatures and also focus on some case studies within African continent. The ways some of these approaches have essentialised women's roles in the society and the challenges arisen therefrom will also be discussed.

D. Travers Scott and Meagan Bates analyze television advertisements for anti-anxiety medications in order to explore the status of anxiety as a disability. Through close textual analysis, informed by Foucauldian theory and political economy, they demonstrate the intricate ways that femininity, disability, and normalization inflect and reinforce each other in contemporary discourses around mental health. These ads do not merely target women, they argue, but in fact construct femininity itself as inherently pathological and in need of medical intervention. At the same time, however, parodies of these ads reveal resistance to their pathologizing tropes and point the way toward greater appreciation for neurodiversity.

Disability and media shape each other in often surprising ways. Through his analysis of the discourse of the disabled " shut-in " in the first decade of broadcasting, Kirkpatrick reveals how, in the realm of media and social policy, ideas about disability helped shape the U.S. radio system while, simultaneously, ideas about radio influenced the social meanings of disability. Drawing on Foucauldian notions of governmentality and cultural policy, Kirkpatrick argues that disability and media have been co-constitutive since the birth of broadcasting, each helping to produce and regulate the other, with subtle but significant political and cultural consequences.