My research is situated at the intersection of security, global governance, development, and African feminist theory. I am now working on a book manuscript, tentatively titled Advocating for Themselves: Seeking Security Through Women’s Peacebuilding Organizations, out of my doctoral dissertation. 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 UN representatives as well as participant observation over nearly two years in West Africa. With insights from African feminism and critical feminist peacebuilding literatures, my findings call into question the assumptions of women's roles in international security policies and the interrelation of actors in policy implementation.

Field research was conducted in Cote d'Ivoire, funded by a Fulbright Research Fellowship, and Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Mali, funded by a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant. Prior fieldwork has been conducted at the West and Central Africa Regional Office of UN Women in Dakar, Senegal, with regional women’s NGO leaders in Dakar, and at the 57th session of the Commission on the Status of Women at UN Headquarters in New York. My research has also been funded by grants from the Center for Citizen Peacebuilding, the Center for Global Peace and Conflict Studies, the Center in Law, Society and Culture, the Interdisciplinary Center for Ethics and Morality, and the Department of Political Science, all at the University of California, Irvine.