Aili Mari Tripp

Balghis Badri

Throughout Africa, growing numbers of women are coming together and making their voices heard, mobilising around causes ranging from democracy and land rights to campaigns against domestic violence. In Tanzania and Tunisia, women have made major gains in their struggle for equal political rights, and in Sierra Leone and Liberia women have been at the forefront of efforts to promote peace and reconciliation. While some of these movements have been influenced by international feminism and external donors, increasingly it is African women who are shaping the global struggle for women's rights. Bringing together African authors who themselves are part of the activist groups, this collection represents the only comprehensive and up-to-date overview of women's movements in contemporary Africa. Drawing on case studies and fresh empirical material from across the continent, the authors challenge the prevailing assumption that notions of women's rights have trickled down from the global north to the south, showing instead that these movements have been shaped by above all the unique experiences and concerns of the local women involved.

Struggles for Rights and Representation

Women's Activism in Africa

Myra Marx Ferree

Christina Ewig

"A powerful argument... successfully challenges both security to address gender and feminist analysis to address security." - Sylvia Walby, author of New Agendas for Women

Critical Feminist Perspectives

Gender, Violence, and Human Security

Throughout Africa, growing numbers of women are coming together and making their voices heard, mobilising around causes ranging from democracy and land rights to campaigns against domestic violence. In Tanzania and Tunisia, women have made major gains in their struggle for equal political rights, and in Sierra Leone and Liberia women have been at the forefront of efforts to promote peace and reconciliation. While some of these movements have been influenced by international feminism and external donors, increasingly it is African women who are shaping the global struggle for women’s rights. Bringing together African authors who themselves are part of the activist groups, this collection represents the only comprehensive and up-to-date overview of women’s movements in contemporary Africa. Drawing on case studies and fresh empirical material from across the continent, the authors challenge the prevailing assumption that notions of women’s rights have trickled down from the global north to the south, showing instead that these movements have been shaped by above all the unique experiences and concerns of the local women involved.

This book explains why women's rights are improving more rapidly in post-conflict countries in Africa than elsewhere on the continent.

Women and Power in Post-Conflict Africa

The nature of human security is changing globally: interstate conflict and even intrastate conflict may be diminishing worldwide, yet threats to individuals and communities persist. Large-scale violence by formal and informal armed forces intersects with interpersonal and domestic forms of violence in mutually reinforcing ways. Gender, Violence, and Human Security takes a critical look at notions of human security and violence through a feminist lens, drawing on both theoretical perspectives and empirical examinations through case studies from a variety of contexts around the globe. This fascinating volume goes beyond existing feminist international relations engagements with security studies to identify not only limitations of the human security approach, but also possible synergies between feminist and human security approaches. Noted scholars Aili Mari Tripp, Myra Marx Ferree, and Christina Ewig, along with their distinguished group of contributors, analyze specific case studies from around the globe, ranging from post-conflict security in Croatia to the relationship between state policy and gender-based crime in the United States. Shifting the focus of the term “human security” from its defensive emphasis to a more proactive notion of peace, the book ultimately calls for addressing the structural issues that give rise to violence. A hard-hitting critique of the ways in which global inequalities are often overlooked by human security theorists, Gender, Violence, and Human Security presents a much-needed intervention into the study of power relations throughout the world.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1997.

The Politics of Liberalization and the Urban Informal Economy in Tanzania

Changing the Rules

A comparative study based on extensive fieldwork, and an original database of gender-based reforms in the Middle East and North Africa, Aili Mari Tripp analyzes why autocratic leaders in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia adopted more extensive women's rights than their Middle Eastern counterparts.

Why Arab Autocracies Adopt Women's Rights

Seeking Legitimacy

Uganda has attracted much attention and political visibility for its significant economic recovery after a catastrophic decline. In her groundbreaking book, Aili Mari Tripp provides extensive data and analysis of patterns of political behavior and institutions by focusing on the unique success of indigenous women’s organizations. Tripp explores why the women’s movement grew so dramatically in such a short time after the National Resistant Movement took over in 1986. Unlike many African countries where organizations and institutions are controlled by a ruling party or regime, the Ugandan women’s movement gained its momentum by remaining autonomous.

Women and Politics in Uganda

Since the UN's World Conference on Women in Mexico City in 1975, feminists around the world have campaigned with increasing success for recognition of women's full personhood and empowerment. This book explores the social and political developments that have energised this movement.

Transnational Women's Activism, Organizing, and Human Rights

Global Feminism

Increasingly feminists around the world have successfully campaigned for recognition of women's full personhood and empowerment. Global Feminism explores the social and political developments that have energized this movement. Drawn from an international group of scholars and activists, the authors of these original essays assess both the opportunities that transnationalism has created and the tensions it has inadvertently fostered. By focusing on both the local and global struggles of today's feminist activists this important volume reveals much about women's changing rights, treatment and impact in the global world. Contributors: Melinda Adams, Aida Bagic, Yakin Ertürk, Myra Marx Ferree, Amy G. Mazur, Dorothy E. McBride, Hilkka Pietilä, Tetyana Pudrovska, Margaret Snyder, Sarah Swider, Aili Mari Tripp, Nira Yuval-Davis.

Aili Mari Tripp

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