TY - JOUR
T1 - Protection as connection
T2 - feminist relational theory and protecting civilians from violence in South Sudan
AU - Gray, Felicity
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - The direct protection of civilians from the violence and harms of armed conflict is most often understood in fixed, identity-centred terms: of what protection is, where it is located, of who provides it, who receives it. Such analyses often conceal the relational nature of civilian protection: how it is co-created by actors in and through their relationships with one another and the protection architectures they operate within. In this article, I explore how a feminist relational approach helps to illuminate these underacknowledged dynamics of civilian protection. Using protection of civilians in the context of the civil war in South Sudan as an example, I highlight how relationships shape protection, and how a relational approach can illuminate a richer view of protection actors, action, and spaces. Drawing from the example of United Nations police mass cordon and search activities, I also demonstrate how relationships between peacekeepers and displaced communities are shaped by protection architectures. I argue that a relational approach can illuminate unjust structures, create important opportunities for new research, and assist in questioning and reorienting dominant peacekeeping strategies.
AB - The direct protection of civilians from the violence and harms of armed conflict is most often understood in fixed, identity-centred terms: of what protection is, where it is located, of who provides it, who receives it. Such analyses often conceal the relational nature of civilian protection: how it is co-created by actors in and through their relationships with one another and the protection architectures they operate within. In this article, I explore how a feminist relational approach helps to illuminate these underacknowledged dynamics of civilian protection. Using protection of civilians in the context of the civil war in South Sudan as an example, I highlight how relationships shape protection, and how a relational approach can illuminate a richer view of protection actors, action, and spaces. Drawing from the example of United Nations police mass cordon and search activities, I also demonstrate how relationships between peacekeepers and displaced communities are shaped by protection architectures. I argue that a relational approach can illuminate unjust structures, create important opportunities for new research, and assist in questioning and reorienting dominant peacekeeping strategies.
KW - Protection of civilians
KW - South Sudan
KW - civilian protection
KW - feminist relational theory
KW - peacekeeping
KW - relationality
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85131337183&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/17449626.2022.2052152
DO - 10.1080/17449626.2022.2052152
M3 - Article
SN - 1744-9626
VL - 18
SP - 152
EP - 170
JO - Journal of Global Ethics
JF - Journal of Global Ethics
IS - 1
ER -