Gender Neutral? Revisiting UN Cold War Peacekeeping

Abstract

Scholarship has not explored gender in relation to Cold War United Nations peacekeeping. I argue that this is far more problematic than a cursory glance would suggest. It has, I contend, important implications for UN peacekeeping and peacebuilding projects in the different ‘mission areas’ and their scholarly critiques, thus limiting the potential for profound change in how we go about both. By way of an analysis that begins to explore how gender informed the workings of the first UN peacekeeping operation in its ‘mission area’, I point to ways in which scholars can engage in challenging the status quo by historicising and gendering the undertakings of the UN in its multiple and diverse ‘mission areas’. In doing so, I link neoliberalism to the deeper dynamics of inter-imperial modes of governance, which have never quite faded.

Keywords

• Peacekeeping
• gender
• history
• space
• interdisciplinary