2009 - Dr Meenakshi Gopinath - Rescripting Security: Gender and Peacebuilding in South Asia

Dr Meenakshi Gopinath

This year's annual lecture was given by Dr Meenakshi Gopinath (Principal, Lady Shri Ram College, New Delhi and founder and current Director of Women in Security, Conflict Management and Peace, WISCOMP - which seeks to promote the leadership of South Asian women in the areas of peace, security and regional cooperation).

This talk was an attempt to foreground some of the challenges and opportunities for peacebuilding in the South Asian region, especially when seen through a gender lens. It reflected the quest for new meaning, new metaphors and an alternative vocabulary that could include the concerns of that half of the population, namely women, whose voices are not often heard in the meta-narratives of national security. The talk drew on the experience and research of WISCOMP a South Asian initiative that is committed to facilitate the participation and leadership of women in Conflict transformation and Peacebuilding.

Dr. Gopinath is a member of multi-track peace initiatives in Kashmir and between India and Pakistan including the Neemrana Peace Initiative and the Pakistan India Peoples' Forum for Peace and Democracy, and was the first woman to serve as member of the National Security Advisory Board of India.She has authored among others Pakistan in Transition, and co-authored Conflict Resolution - Trends and Prospects, Transcending Conflict: A Resource book on Conflict Transformation and Dialogic Engagement and has contributed chapters and articles in several books and journals on Gandhi, the politics of Pakistan, the arts Conflict Resolution, Gender and Peace Building et al.

Her interests include issues of human rights and gender, conflict transformation and Buddhist and Gandhian philosophy. For a further biography of Dr Gopinath, please click here.