Gendered silences in post-conflict societies: a typology

This article offers new theoretical insights into the relationship between silence, gender and agency. Bridging feminist research and critical peace research, the article considers the gendered practices of making and breaking silence in the aftermath of war and armed conflict. A typology is proposed along the axes of (a) disabling and enabling silences, and (b) social remembering and forgetting. Drawing on a number of illustrative cases, the typology is used to identify and categorise modes and functions of gendered silence, and show how oxymoronic fluctuations between silence and speech play out in the everyday. Silence can be employed for subordination and erasure, but can also be a strategy for coping with a precarious everyday, a form of tacit communication of ambiguity as well as a claim-making strategy. Unpacking the gendered dimensions of silence reveals power dynamics with deep implications for societies transitioning from war.