1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910789624203321

Autore

Coulter Chris <1969->

Titolo

Bush wives and girl soldiers [[electronic resource] ] : women's lives through war and peace in Sierra Leone / / Chris Coulter

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Ithaca, : Cornell University Press, 2009

ISBN

0-8014-7512-0

0-8014-5848-X

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (303 p.)

Collana

Cornell paperbacks

Disciplina

966.404

Soggetti

Women and war - Sierra Leone

Women - Crimes against - Sierra Leone

Rural women - Sierra Leone - Social conditions

Sierra Leone History Civil War, 1991-2002 Women

Sierra Leone History Civil War, 1991-2002 Participation, Female

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. A Decade of War- Centuries of Uncertainty -- 2. Gendered Lives in Rural Sierra Leone -- 3. Abduction and Everyday Rebel Life -- 4. From Rape Victims to Female Fighters -- 5. Reconciliation or Revenge -- 6. Surviving the Postwar Economy -- 7. Coming Home - Domesticating the Bush -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

During the war in Sierra Leone (1991-2002), members of various rebel movements kidnapped thousands of girls and women, some of whom came to take an active part in the armed conflict alongside the rebels. In a stunning look at the life of women in wartime, Chris Coulter draws on interviews with more than a hundred women to bring us inside the rebel camps in Sierra Leone. When these girls and women returned to their home villages after the cessation of hostilities, their families and peers viewed them with skepticism and fear, while humanitarian organizations saw them primarily as victims. Neither view was particularly helpful in helping them resume normal lives after the war. Offering lessons for policymakers, practitioners, and activists, Coulter shows how prevailing notions of gender, both in home communities



and among NGO workers, led, for instance, to women who had taken part in armed conflict being bypassed in the demilitarization and demobilization processes carried out by the international community in the wake of the war. Many of these women found it extremely difficult to return to their families, and, without institutional support, some were forced to turn to prostitution to eke out a living. Coulter weaves several themes through the work, including the nature of gender roles in war, livelihood options in war and peace, and how war and postwar experiences affect social and kinship relations.