The Wandering Minstrels of Compassion: Tracing the Role of Women's Grassroots Peacebuilding in Northern Ireland and Kashmir

Abstract

Nandini Gupta Women's role in peacebuilding is often internationally lauded: for example, in the UN's Women, Peace and Security Agenda UNSCR 1325. But the questions as to why women mobilise for peace, what they contribute and what impact they can have are subjects for discussion and debate. Global governance agendas like UNSCR 1325 often overlook women's grassroots peace-making strategies in various conflicts. This research aims to study this under-researched area and question why UNSCR 1325 has failed to assimilate and understand women's grassroots peacebuilding. To study this issue, a comparative analysis has been conducted with two women-centric grassroots organisations: Peace People, Northern Ireland and Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons, Kashmir. This comparative study extensively discusses the indigenous strategies of grassroots women peacebuilders/activism based on their collaborative consciousness enabled through the efficient mobilisation of Politics of Compassion. It also explains the particularity of their practice of Transversal Politics through which they have built cross-sectarian alliances to pursue their goal of equality and inclusiveness in conflict-ridden societies. The concluding Chapter of this research ties together the critique of UNSCR 1325 with the engaging discussions of women peacebuilders/activists in Kashmir and NI and offers recommendations to the Women Peace and Security Agenda and UNSCR 1325 to re-orient its engagement with women's grassroots and informal peacebuilding.