Decolonizing Peace: Gender, Coloniality, and the Erasure of Life

This lecture interrogates the coloniality of peace studies by examining how gender is mobilized or erased in the narratives of war, violence, and intervention by looking at Gaza. It explores how, in some contexts, gender becomes a tool of imperial intervention the guise of ‘saving brown women from brown men’ (Spivak, 1985) In others, gendered hierarchies reinforce sacrificial logics, as seen in  narratives of "women and children first" narratives that render men disposable, particular in war. Yet, in Gaza, the discourse of gender collapses entirely, reducing life to mere flesh and erasing the differentiated humanity of its people.

By critically examining these patterns through a decolonial lens, the lecture exposes the ways in which colonial and racial logics manipulate gender as a tool to justify or obscure violence. It critiques how traditional peace theories often ignore the intersection of gender and coloniality, failing to account for the racialized erasure of gendered lives in colonised spaces. The lecture calls for a reimagined peace studies that acknowledges the entangled legacies of colonialism, gender, and structural violence, urging scholars to confront the colonial underpinnings of ‘universal peace’ and the selective recognition of humanity in global politics.

Dr. Mahdis Azarmandi is a scholar specializing in the intersections of Peace and Conflict Studies, race critical and decolonial studies. With a background in Political Science and Peace and Conflict Studies, her work critically examines how global power structures, shaped by colonialism and imperialism, impact peace and conflict dynamics. Her research focuses on the concept of "racial silence in peace studies," exploring how racial divisions intersect with geographic patterns of peace and violence. Drawing on race-critical and decolonial analyses, Azarmandi challenges longstanding Eurocentric narratives that portray the West as peaceful and the Global South as conflict-ridden.

Dr. Azarmandi currently works at the University of Canterbury, in the Faculty of Education, School of Social and Cultural Studies in Education, where their teaching and research bridge the fields of peace studies and social justice in education. Their educational research explores how race, gender, and disability shape educational policies and practices, focusing on the intersectional impacts of these factors. Dr. Azarmandi is committed to decolonizing educational frameworks and promoting social justice through critical analysis of institutional structures. Their interdisciplinary work also addresses the politics of memorialization and the role of colonial monuments in perpetuating historical violence.