GCRF Gender and Violent Extremism Network

This proposal will develop an open, critical and interdisciplinary network on Gender and Responding to Violent Extremism. The project is led by Dr Fatuma Ahmed, the United States International University in Kenya and Dr Sahla Aroussi, the Centre of Trust Peace and Social Relations in collaboration with Ms Pauline Skaper, the Rift Valley Institute in Nairobi. Although there is no international consensus on what constitutes violent extremism, it is acknowledged that this type of violence undermines peace and development not only at the national level but internationally. Violent extremism tends to be approached from a gender essentialist perspective, with men assumed to be perpetrators and women as victims, 'mothers' and 'wives' of recruits or potential recruits. In recent years, the role of women in the prevention of violent extremism and within extremist networks such as Al-Shabaab, the 'Islamic State' and the English Defence League has come to the spotlight particularly following the adoption of the United Nations Security Council resolutions following the adoption of 2242 on Women, Peace and Security in 2015. Yet, research and scholarship in this area remains new and a deeper engagement with gender and the role of norms around masculinities and femininities in violent extremism is still limited in scholarship and policies around terrorism and violent extremism. Hence, our Global Network on Gender and Responding to Violent Extremism (GARVE) is both timely and relevant. Around the globe, there are a number of international networks focused on violent extremism and radicalisation or on gender but there are no international networks that are specifically focused on gender and violent extremism.
Our proposal addresses primarily the Challenge Area of Human Rights, Good Governance and Social Justice but also cuts across the Challenge Area of Equitable Access to Sustainable Development. 'Violent extremism' has significant impact on women and girls' enjoyment of human rights. Because of its impact on security and stability, violent extremism undermines development efforts, and sustains aid dependency. Countries experiencing violent extremism are spending significant portion of their budget on military spending and counter-terrorism operations that could have been invested in services, infrastructure and development projects. As a result, poverty increases and deepens, and the population suffer. Violent extremism also halts development by pushing population to flee and migrate and by the damage that extremist groups do to infrastructure and institution. This project is fully aligned to the UK's international challenges and policy priorities. Tackling violent extremism, gender equality and increasing communities' resilience are all UK aid priorities. Kenya is on the DAC list of countries recipient of ODA funding.
Our network will bring together academics and practitioners from across the globe virtually and physically to discuss, exchange knowledge and expertise, theorise, identify research gaps and highlight best practices and policy failures. The network aims to attract members from diverse disciplines, to promote innovative and critical thinking on violent extremism from a gender perspective and to facilitate shared learning. By adopting an interdisciplinary approach and a multidisciplinary membership this network will allow for new perspective on gender and responding to violent extremism to emerge. Our network will ensure continuous engagement with policymakers in the UK and internationally. The activities of our network include research networking visits, engagement event, conference, roundtables, and webinars. The network deliveries are a network of academic and practitioners working on gender and violent extremism, strong partnership between members of the network, an online library of resources, a special website for the network, 2 academic edited volumes, and research funding proposals for GCRF and other funders.

This proposal will develop an open, critical and interdisciplinary network on Gender and Responding to Violent Extremism. Gender is generally under-researched in scholarship on violent extremism and overlooked or misunderstood in policies and programmes aimed at its prevention. Around the globe, there are a number of international networks focused on violent extremism and radicalisation or on gender but there are no international networks that are specifically focused on gender and violent extremism. The impact strands of our network are: 1) Sharing knowledge and informing policy and practice; 2) fostering dialogue on gender and violent extremism; 3) enhancing the capacity of researchers from the Global South to apply for funding and to lead on research proposals; 4) enabling the development of new research projects on gender and violent extremism; 5) Building strong partnerships between academics and practitioners beyond the life of the project.
1) Sharing knowledge and informing policy and practice: Through maximising knowledge and evidence sharing based on the research of our network members we are aiming to influence policymakers and practitioners members to approach gender and violent extremism from a different perspective rooted in gender equality, sustainable development and good governance and respect for human rights.
2) Fostering dialogue on gender and violent extremism: our network will bring together academics and practitioners who worked with different groups and understanding of what constitute violent extremists and extremism (ultra-right; foreign fighters; Islamists; Christian rights...). The network also brings together people with different geographical expertise, different disciplinary and theoretical perspectives and areas of expertise. As such the network will foster the emergence of a powerful, timely and unique dialogue on what constitutes violent extremism, how gender operates within different forms of violent extremism and how violent extremism can be addressed from an interdisciplinary perspective.
3) Enhancing the capacity of researchers from the Global South to apply for funding and to lead on research proposals: Our network has capacity building at its core. Through the various activities discussed in the pathways for impact we are aiming to build the abilities of researchers from the Global South including early career to successfully seek funding opportunities and to collaborate on research projects. We are also aiming to support the capacity of early career researchers to publish in academic journals and edited collections.
4) Enabling the development of new research projects on gender and violent extremism: The network will provide opportunities, impetus, and ideas for new research projects on gender and violent extremism to be developed and submitted. These could potentially include GCRF Network Plus grants and other GCRF research focused grants.
5) Building strong partnerships between academics and practitioners: one of the main deliveries of this project is a large network of partners with various degrees of involvement with the network. Among this group we envisage the emergence of a strong Community of Practice to emerge naturally and informally and to continue to work together beyond the life of the project to apply for collaborative funding projects, to conduct collaborative research and to continue to share research findings and best practices. Despite the almost universal relevance of this area of interest, international collaboration in this field is extremely rare; an important aspect of what we will achieve will be fostering these relationships to allow for a greater evidence base and global understanding of gender and violent extremism.