My experience so far as an intern for the Consortium for Gender, Security, and Human Rights, based in University of Massachusetts in Boston, has been wonderful. One of the projects I have been working on is the syllabus collection on the consortium’s website. We currently have over 150 syllabi of courses taught all over the world. Current titles range from: “Gender and Human Security in Transitional States and Societies”, taught at Tufts’ Fletcher school, to “War & Gender” taught out of Lahore University in Pakistan. I have been focusing on finding new courses at graduate institutions, because most of the existing classes have been taught at the undergraduate level. Additionally, I have been focusing on the topics of gender and health in the complex humanitarian context at different public health programs.
My research focus so far this summer has been on Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) and masculinities. A lot of existing literature on the subject that contains gender analysis deals with female ex-combatants, however an emerging line of research has been focusing on the concept of militarized masculinizes. Specifically, how masculinity is constructed in the war training processes and how that affects men and women in their post conflict lives.
I entered into my internship feeling somewhat comfortable with the “security” and “human rights” aspects from the consortium’s title based on my concentration in international security and extracurricular experience in IGL clubs such as ALLIES, and Amnesty International. However, I had never taken a course relating to women in IR or even knew what gender analysis really meant. I am really fortunate that I have had the opportunity to learn from my fellow interns and staff at the consortium about these topics. Participating in formal trainings and even more informal discussions has informed my understanding of the importance of considering gender -as well as many other intersectional power hierarchies – in the study of international relations.
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