[My research contributes to] a better understanding of how decolonial approaches in International Relations present solutions for the challenges of the past, the present and the future.
How do you push back pushbacks? Miriam Mona Mukalazi's research is all about finding answers to this question. She looks at legitimation practice by regional organisations regarding the Women, Peace and Security agenda.
More specifically, Miriam's focus lies on the African Union's and the European Union's Gender, Peace and Security policies. She wants to find out how both organisations justify their approach to govern according policies. "The objective of this research is to dive deeper into how bother organisations embrace and disrupt colonial continuties in their Gender, Peace and Security policies," she says.
How do organisations embrace and disrupt colonial continuties?
Miriam Mona Mukalazi wishes to explain to what degree colonial continuties are embedded in the WPS agenda (Women, Peace and Security), and how regional organisations institutionalise these gendered colonial continuties. She says: "Personally, I'm interested in the cultural component of constructing gender because of my German-Ugandan background but also because of my professional background working in international institutions on gender policies."
Pursuing feminist research through decolonizing research practices
To gain a better understanding of how decolonial approaches in International Relations is of utmost importance, as this could indicate directions for a better practice moving forward. Miriam Mona Mukalazi thus hopes to be able to "present solutions for the challenges of the past, the present and the future" through her research that is embedded with the University of Cologne and the University of Düsseldorf.
As the production of knowledge inside academia can itself be problematized, decolonizing the research approach is a central part of feminist research philosophy. Pursuing feminist research ethics to Miriam Mona Mukalazi means taking on an approach that takes into consideration knowledge which is often seen as "not legitimate knowledge", e.g. knowledge produced by non-traditional actors in a non-traditional academic way. Taking seriously this kind of knowledge is the fundament of her work.
We would like to thank Miriam for contributing to IN-VISIBLE Academia and wish her all the best for her research. If you want to read more about it, visit Miriam's website.
IN-VISIBLE ACADEMIA - a platform for Gender Studies researchers
This feature is part of IN-VISIBLE ACADEMIA, a platform for research from the fields of Gender Studies, with the goal to make it more visible and accessible to a broader public from areas of politics, business and administration. For this purpose, we feature researchers and their work on our Social Media channels. The goal is to help Gender Studies research gain more visibility and thereby to build awareness about its meaning and relevance for society. We thus hope to provide alternative content to the anti-feminist hate speech and backlash that is increasingly associated with Gender Studies on social media.
The open call is still open to all researchers in the field of Gender Studies
You can participate here. This project is run by IN-VISIBLE and MARGHERITA-VON-BRENTANO-ZENTRUM. For us, it is of secondary importance whether you are a professor, research assistant, or doing post-doc research - we are interested in your research if you feel like your results should be made more available to a broader public. We explicitly do not want to exclude anyone on the basis of their academic degree. The only criteria here is that you have had some sort of publication success with your topic and that, accordingly, our community could peek into it. If this applies to you, then you are welcome to participate. The incoming applications will be viewed by us and - if suitable - shared via our channels in the form of features.