Research

Current and Recent Research

Contact me for PDFs if the paywall is a problem

Sustaining Peace: Human Development, Economic Empowerment, and Discourses of Women's Security

book manuscript in progress

This project dissects the UN Security Council's Women, Peace, and Security agenda's implementation in three francophone West African countries: Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea, and Mali. I demonstrate that the agenda's implementation is shaped by a number of factors, in particular a tension between "security," "peacebuilding," and "development" projects for women, not only in rhetoric but also in the programs designed to implement the agenda. Further tensions arise in the conflicting priorities of local women's organizations, national governments, and the international and transnational policy communities. The effects of these tensions are revealed through interviews with local NGO, government, and United Nations representatives as well as participant observation over nearly two years in West Africa. With insights from African feminism, my findings call into question the assumptions about women's roles in international security policies and the interrelation of actors in policy implementation.

Women, Peace, and Security

  • Reiling, Carrie. 2017. "Pragmatic Scepticism in Implementing the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda." Global Affairs 3(4–5): 469–481. 10.1080/23340460.2017.1440803

  • Reiling, Carrie. Revise and resubmit. "Does Gender Inclusion Equal Security Sector Reform? Implementing UNSCR 1325 in Côte dʼIvoire"

Feminist and Interpretive Methodologies

  • Schwarz, Tanya, and Carrie Reiling. "Preparing an Interpretive Research Design." In Doing Good Qualitative Research, Jen Cyr and Sara Goodman, eds. forthcoming, Oxford University Press.

  • Reiling, Carrie. 2020. "The Planning and Practice of Feminist Fieldwork Methodologies in Conflict and Post-Conflict Contexts." In SAGE Research Methods Cases. SAGE Publications Ltd. 10.4135/9781529722727

Genealogies of Women's Environmental Activism

on hold (thanks, Covid)

I am developing a genealogy of women’s environmental activism, using two West Africa countries, Guinea and Senegal, to understand how and when women’s activism on environmental issues is successful and when it is instrumentalized. In other words, when is an international focus on the environment not a response to the environmental problems themselves but is instead used as a tool to achieve other goals? This project develops a theory of how the environment, like women’s issues, is simultaneously important and yet not central to the production and practices of international relations.

Commentary