Dr Georgina Holmes - 'Feminist theorising war and genocide in the Great Lakes region of Africa'

The David Davies Memorial Institute was pleased to host a special guest lecture by Dr Georgina Holmes, Royal Holloway, University of London, who spoke on 'Feminist theorising war and genocide in the Great Lakes region of Africa.' The talk was given in the Main Hall of the International Politics Building on the 5th of February.

Description of the talk:

Despite Africa’s marginal status in International Relations theory generally, feminists theorising gender and war have examined how in certain regions of Africa, rape is used as a weapon of war. In this talk, Georgina Holmes will consider how conflicts in the Great Lakes region of Africa, and in Rwanda and the DRC in particular, are imaged within feminist theorising of International Relations. Her analysis leads her to question whether the theoretical models of war adopted by feminists adequately describe gender insecurity in a region where multiple wars and genocide coalesce.

Biographical extract:

Georgina Holmes completed an MA in Gender and International Development at the University of Warwick in 2002 before undertaking a PhD inInternational Relations Theory at SOAS. Her research focuses on the politics of image management and war propaganda in African conflicts, paying particular attention to Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and on the inclusion of African women in International Relations theory. Georgina currently teaches International Relations Theory at Royal Holloway, University of London and co-chairs the Africa Research Group in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. She is the author of Women and War in Rwanda: Gender, Media and the Representation of Genocide (I.B. Tauris, forthcoming March 2013).