Itziar Mujika Chao and Linda Gusia: the persistence of feminist solidarity in armed conflicts, wars and peace processes

Itziar Mujika Chao (Hegoa, University of the Basque Country - EHU) and Linda Gusia (University of Prishtina) have shared a common research interest over many years: women’s movements and feminist activists in Kosovo in the 1980s and 1990s, when systematic violence by the Serbian government and its armed forces intensified. In the article “Genealogia feministen continuuma”, recently published by Campusa magazine, both reflect on what can be learnt from wars in these times of crisis and on the role played by feminists in these contexts.

The two researchers explain that, despite their backgrounds and career paths being very different, they were asking themselves very similar questions. Linda, an Albanian, experienced systematic violence and war first-hand; she was part of the feminist movements she was researching. Itziar, a Basque, has approached the context and the war in Kosovo, as well as the feminist movement, through research. Since 2014, their research processes have shared a strong common thread: the persistence of feminist solidarity in armed conflicts, wars and peace processes.

“A touch of feminist curiosity,” they emphasise, “brings to light the deeply entrenched mechanisms, networks and systems of power that create an image of reality distorted by gender and the racial and class structures that perpetuate them.” In the case of Kosovo, for example, the feminist movement took part in the pacifist resistance of the 1990s, was present when war broke out, suffered the consequences of NATO intervention “and restructured itself after the war and amidst the reconstruction process, which also entailed a process of re-traditionalisation”.

In addition to the issue of women as victims of sexual violence and their use as a weapon of war, the researchers explain that studies and the media focused primarily on the most visible aspect: the human cost of the war and the consequences of NATO intervention. “The reality was also more complex and nuanced,” they argue, “and included the multiple interrelated forces that shaped everyday life: the feminist movement that emerged as a response to systemic state violence prior to the war and has been a constant feature across all of Kosovo’s socio-political contexts”. Despite this complexity, certain stereotypes persist, such as considering Kosovar women to be “backward” subjects who depended on the former Yugoslavia, and the assertion that the feminist movement “was a product of the post-war period”.

Initially, women began to organise collectively to demand justice for what happened to their sons, “who were returned in coffins after leaving home to join the Yugoslav army”. Gradually, feminist activism came to be characterised by everyday survival and the ongoing maintenance of solidarity networks. An example of this is the Centre for the Protection of Women and Children set up by Sevdije Ahmeti and Vjosa Dobruna: “there, in addition to providing medical services for women and children, larger-scale mobilisations were organised in the basement and international links were forged with other women”.

“Feminist solidarity has spread and continues to spread,” argue Itziar Mujika Chao and Linda Gusia, “through different networks and across many geographical spaces, because the continuum of feminist resistance remains there: unfinished and constant”.

Additional information

Itziar Mujika Chao is a lecturer in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at the EHU and a member of the Hegoa Institute.

Linda Gusia is a lecturer in Sociology at the University of Prishtina (Kosovo).

You can read the full article here.