Female Demining Teams - How They Strengthen Environmental Justice & Weaken Gender Boundaries

• In Event: 2351 - Section on the Sociology of Sex and Gender Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: 3. Gender Bodies at Work

Abstract

This paper explores the role of female demining teams in simultaneously creating gender equality and environmental justice. By focusing on literature on the gendered body by Butler and Foucault, this study analyzes how women deminers utilize their bodies to shift gender norms in regions where traditional gender expectations are important. This paper also relies on Bourdieu’s concepts of social and cultural capital to better understand the material changes that occur on the ground for women deminers. Using the HALO Trust as a case study with supporting data from an interview with a former employee, I analyze the organization’s structure and mission to include women in the workforce. Relying on representative, capacities, and cultural forms of justice and their frameworks, this paper explores how demining efforts that include women, like those of HALO’s, can be considered feminist.

Author

• Inna Mirzoyan, Michigan State University