Title: Breaking Barricades, Making Peace: Women in Ethiopian Peacekeeping Missions

This doctoral research project will examine the Ethiopian government’s implementation of UNSCR 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, adopted seventeen years ago. The resolution was the first to focus on mainstreaming gender in peace processes and conflict management. Several other resolutions followed UNSCR 1325. They looked at both the gendered impact of conflict and women’s participation in peacekeeping and peacemaking. Implementation of these resolutions, however, has been criticized. According to the UN, Ethiopia is among the top contributors of peacekeeping forces in the world. In order to better understand how implementation of UNSCR 1325 and other resolutions occurs in Ethiopia and how deployment impacts female peacekeepers, the research will focus on three things: government efforts to integrate women into peacekeeping forces and how the gender gap in peace operations has been addressed; the experiences, challenges, and contributions of women peacekeepers; and the interactions between national and global actors with respect to the implementation of gender mainstreaming policies in peace operations. Research will take place in the field in Abyie and South Sudan, where Ethiopia has a large number of troops deployed, and will be informed by multidisciplinary theoretical perspectives.