Search

∞ This article contributes to a developing field of scholarship that has been concerned with exploring the impacts of conflict and its transformation on sexual and gender minorities. Drawing on extant analysis, the article explores the marginalization of issues pertaining to sexuality and gender in international law and peace agreements. It then moves on to an assessment of the effects of the integration of sexual orientation and gender identity equality provisions into a limited number of peace agreements. The article contends that attempts to implement and extend sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) equality provisions in peace agreements in meaningful ways typically become cast as justifiable, residual or reprehensible by agonistic groups at local levels during transition. It claims that this fracturing of standpoints on SOGI equality can strengthen counterhegemonic articulations of sexual and gender minorities’ identities that provoke radical versions of peacebuilding.

Constitutions reflect national values and set out the foundational principles of governance. Traditionally, those values and principles have been male-defined. As such, constitutions often form the basis of the ‘gendered state’ with all its attendant inequities. Feminist constitutionalism challenges the wider domain of constitution-making to consider questions relating to gender inequality in constitutional debate, design and redesign. Through a case study approach, this article utilises a feminist lens to examine on-going constitutional debates in Northern Ireland that have been deepened by Brexit. Any new constitutional arrangements on the island of Ireland will drive multiple transformations in social, legal and economic life that will impact on the lives of women. Subsequently, this article explores the gender dynamics of current debates to contribute to the broader feminist literature on constitutional transitions in deeply divided societies.

Men's dominance of the political and military dimensions of the Northern Ireland conflict has meant that the story of the conflict has generally been a story about men. Ethno-nationalist antagonism reinforced men's roles as protectors and defenders of ethno-national groups and shaped violent expressions of masculinities. Due to the primacy of ethno-nationalist frameworks of analysis in research on the conflict, the relationships between gender and men's violence have been under-theorized. This article employs the framework of Critical Studies of Men and Masculinities to examine these relationships and also explores the changing patterns of men's violence in Northern Ireland.

This article discusses the challenges of teaching sexual politics in the context of Northern Ireland. In this region, ethno-nationalism has been implicated in the constitution of sexual narratives that serve the respective ethno-nationalist struggles in the region. The interaction of sexuality with ethnicity reinforces the importance of reflecting on pedagogical practices around sensitive/controversial subjects. The article draws on a mixture of pedagogical perspectives and personal reflection to assess a set of pedagogical issues that face educators teaching in these complex contexts. While the reflections and discussions in this essay relate to a particular teaching context and subject matter, they have broader relevance in terms of the teaching of sensitive/controversial subjects.