Increasing levels of global conflict and political violence provide a critical challenge for development theorists and practitioners. Many countries have endured decades of armed conflict, and others live under the permanent menace of political violence. Throughout, the gendered impacts of armed conflict and political violence are key issues. The gendered causes, costs, and consequences of violent conflicts have been underrepresented, and often misrepresented. This book gives a broader understanding of the complex, changing relations between women and men in societies facing violence and conflict.

Caroline Moser is lead specialist in social development for Latin America and the Caribbean at the Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development Department of the World Bank. Publications include Gender Planning and Development: Theory, Practice and Training (1993) and Women, Human Settlements and Housing (co-editor with Linda Peake) (1987). She is currently attached to the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), London.

Fiona Clark has an MA in Gender Analysis from the School of Development Studies, University of East Anglia, she has been working in the Urban Peace Program since early 1999, and under Caroline Moser organised the conference on Gender, Armed Conflict and Political Violence at the World Bank in June 1999, which forms part of the genesis of this book. Previous research also includes gender, social exclusion, and lifecycle in Peru and Latin America as a whole.
>Fiona Clark has an MA in Gender Analysis from the School of Development Studies, University of East Anglia, she has been working in the Urban Peace Program since early 1999, and under Caroline Moser organised the conference on Gender, Armed Conflict and Political Violence at the World Bank in June 1999, which forms part of the genesis of this book. Previous research also includes gender, social exclusion, and lifecycle in Peru and Latin America as a whole.

Part I: Contextual Issues on Gender, Armed Conflict and Political Violence
1. Introduction - Caroline O.N. Moser and Fiona Clark
2. The Gendered Dynamics of Armed Conflict and Political Violence - Cynthia Cockburn
3. The Gendered Continuum of Violence and Conflict: An Operational Framework - Caroline O.N. Moser
Part II: The Politics of Victimization: Sexual Abuse and Violence
4. The Political Economy of Rape: An Analysis of Systematic Rape and Sexual Abuse of Women during Armed Conflict in Africa - Meredeth Turshen
5. The Body of the Other Man: Sexual Violence and the Construction of Masculinity, Sexuality and Ethnicity in the Croatian Media - Dubravka Zarkov
Part III: Gender, Power and Agency
6. Rethinking Women Struggle in Israel/Palestine and in the North of Ireland - Simona Sharoni
7. Women and Communal Conflict: New Challenges for the Women's Movement in India - Urvashi Butalia
Part IV: Women as Actors in Armed Conflict and Political Violence
8. El Salvador: Women and Untold Stories - Women Guerrillas - Ana Cristina Ibáñez
Part V: 'Doing' and 'Being': Questions of Identity in Displacement
9. The Nostalgic Future: Terror, Displacement and Gender in Colombia - Donny Meertens
Part VI: Agency and Identity in Building Sustainable Peace
10. Social Organisations: From Victims to Actors in Peace Building? - Isabel Coral Cordero
11. The Challenge to Inequality: Women, Discrimination and Decision-making in Northern Ireland - Marie Mulholland
12. Gender and Social Capital in Contexts of Political Violence: Community Perceptions from Colombia and Guatemala - Caroline O. N. Moser and Cathy McIlwaine
Part VII: Gender and Voice in Truth and Reconciliation
13. Locked into Loss and Silence: Testimonies of Gender and Violence at the South Africa Truth Commission - Antjie Krog