Contemporary Perspectives on Peace Studies

Recommended Prerequisites

Not applicable.

 

Teaching Methods

Sessions will run as seminars with one or two texts being used as the springboard for larger discussions. In addition, these sessions involve the use of multimedia tools, such as the screening of films and documentaries that will also contribute for the debate of each week’s topic. Evaluation consists of two final papers (for each part of the syllabus) and participation in the seminars, looking to contribute to the consolidation of knowledge and to the development of new academic competences.

Learning Outcomes

The seminar aims to develop students’ critical attitude and innovative frameworks of analysis for international peace and security, from two main perspectives. The first deals with a critical reading of European security and the international security role of the European Union. The second deals with feminist contributions and the study of masculinities regarding the construction of borders, scales and representations of war and peace, as well as different forms of resistance to violence.

Students are expected to gain knowledge on the contributions of critical security theories to European studies and on feminist perspectives on peace and conflict; to be able to apply the epistemological, ontological and methodological assumptions of these approaches to the study of the EU’s global security actorness; to be able to critical assess the relevance of these approaches to the study of regional and international peace and security.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

Part I. Critical European Security Studies

Security and emancipation: the politics of austerity in the Euro zone

Risk, insecurity and violence: terrorism and organised crime in the EU

Post-colonialism: the European Security Strategy and Europe’s “others”

Michel Foucault: Discipline and Power in the periphery of Europe

Pierre Bourdieu: practices of European security

Part II: Feminist perspectives on War, Peace and Violence

Feminist perspectives on War

Feminist perspectives on Peace

Violence in war and in peace

The participation of women in war and violence

Masculinities and violences.

Head Lecturer(s)

Licínia Maria dos Santos Simão

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Other: 30.0%
Research work: 70.0%

Bibliography

Shepherd, L. J. (ed.) (2013) Critical Approaches to Security. Londres: Routledge.

Dillon, M. e Neal, A. W. (eds) (2008) Foucault on Politics, Security and War. Nova Iorque: Palgrave.

Petersen, K. L. (2012) “Risk analysis – A field within security studies?”, EJIR 18:693-717.

Korosteleva, E. A., Natorski, M. & Simão, L. (2013) “The eastern dimension of the European neighbourhood policy: practices, instruments and social structures” EEP 29(3): 257-272
Cockburn, C. (2001), “The gendered dynamics of armed conflict and political violence”. In Moser, C. e Clark, F. (eds) Victims, Perpetrators or Actors? London: Zed Books, 13-29.

Enloe, C. (1993) The morning after: sexual politics at the end of the Cold War, London: University of California Press.

Moura, T. (2010) Novíssimas guerras. Coimbra: Almedina

Banon, I. e Correia, M. (orgs) (2006) The Other Half of Gender: Men's Issues in Development. Washington DC: The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development