Shades of life and death: biopolitics and llminality of sexual and gender-based violence in armed conflict

This dissertation reconceptualizes the problematics of wartime sexual and gender-based violence and examines the ontological question of why rape is used as a weapon of war. As human bodies are politicized and targeted in the struggle for power in the “biopolitical” era, I call attention to the mass “production” of wartime raped bodies as a purposeful method to destroy the population without killing and to leave them “alive and dead” simultaneously. Hence, these abject raped bodies occupy a shaded, “liminal” space between the life and death binary or where life and death overlap. I maintain that the peace and security discourse necessitates a paradigm shift by centering on the notion of liminality and examining how raped bodies are inscribed in biopolitics. This move elevates wartime rape as a pertinent threat and opens up a domain for new discourse formation, to discuss rape and raped bodies as a consequential and urgent matter, not as an anomaly or a byproduct of war or simply a gender and race issue, that is overshadowed by the dominant genocide and mass killing discourse. The shift also creates a discursive space to examine how to reintegrate rape victims into the juridico-political, socioeconomic, and civil domains. This entails not only addressing bodily integrity, but also securing legal codification, economic stability, and full citizenship for rape victims. The “deliminalization” process necessitates a comprehensive and nuanced approach, and the discursive modification serves as a set of mental tools for policymakers and peacekeepers in a new and more holistic way when tackling legal, political, and social issues in post-conflict situations. In the three main chapters, I examine 1) empirical aspects of wartime rape highlighting the predicaments of what wartime rape victims experience, 2) social theories on the politicization and “liminalization” of wartime raped bodies, and 3) global and local efforts and impediments to “deliminalize” raped bodies in the judicial, political, and social domains.Ph. D.Includes bibliographical referencesIncludes vitaby Makiko Ok