Where is Gender in Conflict-Related Gender-Based Violence? An analysis of gendered governance and resistance through problematisations of conflictrelated gender-based violence in German development policy

Abstract: Both development practice and research have paid attention to the issue of sexual and gender-based violence in armed conflict in recent years. However, feminist scholars criticise policies on the issue for reproducing the gendered power relations which are at the root of violence. Research focuses on the policies of a few prominent donors, while policies of lesser-known actors have hardly been examined. Therefore, this study investigates how conflict-related gender-based violence is problematised in German policies, and how gender experts contest prevalent problematisations. Germany provides an interesting case because conflict-related gender-based violence is a declared focus area of German development cooperation. Poststructural analysis of discourse is used to analyse policy papers and semi-structured interviews with gender experts. Based on poststructural feminist understandings of how gendered power is reproduced in discourse, combined with feminist international relations scholarship, the study finds that German policies mirror dominant tropes from international gender, violence and security policy discourses which reproduce gendered and colonial power relations. Gender experts contest power relations through reproblematisation, highlighting unequal gender relations as root causes of gender-based violence and armed conflict.