Gender, Agency and Political Violence

Co-edited with Linda Åhäll.

Considering the conditions, maintenance and interpretation of political violence, the authors analyze the multiple ways in which acts (and perpetrators) of violence, strategies of resistance and efforts at conflict resolution are gendered. Specifically, they engage with the constitution of gendered subjects and gendered agents in a range of different contexts of violence and conclude that acts of violence have varying degrees of legitimacy, dependent on context. They show that political violence is not the exclusive preserve of non-state actors, but that individuals, resistance movements, paramilitaries and state (or state-sponsored) organisations perpetrate violence in pursuit of political objectives.

Gender Matters in Global Politics: A Feminist Introduction to International Relations

Gender Matters in Global Politics is a comprehensive textbook for advanced undergraduates studying feminism & international relations, gender and global politics and similar courses. It provides students with an accessible but in-depth account of the most significant theories, methodologies, debates and issues.

Gender, Violence and Security: Discourse as Practice

Commendations
'This is an excellent example of contemporary feminist poststructural research. It offers a sophisticated, perceptive and persuasive analysis of the discursive constitution of gender/violence. Written with exquisite clarity, it will be of great use in both teaching and research as well as to the policy community.' -Marysia Zalewski, University of Aberdeen

'Laura Shepherd shows us here how we can bring the burgeoning scholarships on violence against women and on human security into conversation with each other in a way that makes us smarter about each - and about the intricate trickily gendered political processes of the UN too. Quite a feat.' - Cynthia Enloe, Clark University

'In this book, we are invited to ‘think differently’ about gender, violence, security and the international, and a space is made for imagining, and so acting, otherwise ...it is a model of clarity, intellectual rigour, and empathetic engagement.' - Jindy Pettman, Gender, Sexuality and Culture, Humanities, The Australian National University