This month, RESOLVE highlights recommended readings from our latest Policy Note, “What Can We Learn from Women’s Participation in Community-Based Armed Groups.” Author Jakana Thomas outlines and expounds upon some of the main insights of the author’s recent RESOLVE research report on women’s participation in West African CBAGs. It proposes a set of considerations for states and stakeholders to structure efforts around gendered security sector reform. This What We’re Reading digest was recommended by the author to give more background on community based-armed groups, gender politics of CBAGs, gender and security sector reform, and women in DDR.

On Community Based-Armed Groups

Agbiboa, Daniel. Origins of Hybrid Governance and Armed Community Mobilization in Sub Saharan Africa. Washington, D.C.: RESOLVE Network, 2019. https://doi.org/10.37805/cbags2019.2.

Van Metre, Lauren. From Self-Defense to Vigilantism: A Typology Framework of Community-Based Armed Groups. Washington, D.C.: RESOLVE Network, 2019. https://doi.org/10.37805/cbags2019.3.

On Gender Politics of CBAGs

Matfess, Hilary. Brokers of Legitimacy: Women in Community-Based Armed Groups. Washington, D.C.: RESOLVE Network, 2020. https://doi.org/10.37805/cbags2020.1.

Thomas, Jakana. Duty and Defiance: Women in Community-based Armed Groups in West Africa. Washington, D.C.: RESOLVE Network, 2021. https://doi.org/10.37805/cbags2021.1.

On Gender and Security Sector Reform

Bastick, Megan, and Tobie Whitman. A Women’s Guide to Security Sector Reform. Washington, D.C.: The Institute for Inclusive Security and Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces, 2013. https://www.inclusivesecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/WGTSSR-Web….

Chemonics International Inc. Gender and Security Sector Reform Toolkit. Washington, D.C.: United States Agency for International Development,
2021. https://www.usaid.gov/democracy/documents/gender-and-security-sector-re….

On Women in DDR

Hills, Christopher, and Megan MacKenzie. “Women in Non-State Armed Groups after War: The (Non) Evolution of Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration.” In The Palgrave International Handbook of Gender and the Military, edited by Rachel Woodward and Claire Duncanson, 455-471. London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2017. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/978-1-137-51677-0_28.

Mazurana, Dyan, Roxanne Krystalli, and Anton Baaré. “Gender and Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration: Reviewing and Advancing the Field.” In The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Conflict, edited by Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, Naomi Cahn, Dina Francesca Haynes, and Nahla Valji, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199300983.013.35.

Vastapuu, Leena. “Not Enough Soldier, Not Enough Civilian: The Continuing Under-Representation of Female Soldiers in Disarmament, Demobilisation, and Reintegration (DDR) Programmes.” In Routledge Handbook of Feminist Peace Research, edited by Tarja Väyrynen, Swati Parashar, Élise Féron, and Catia Cecilia Confortini, 231-239. London: Routledge, 2021. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429024160-2.