Use this URL to cite or link to this record in EThOS: https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.668661
Title: Faith, gender and peacebuilding : the roles of women of faith in peacebuilding in the conflict between the Gusii and Maasai of south-western Kenya
Author: Ogega, Jacqueline Christine
ISNI:       0000 0004 5367 9766
Awarding Body: University of Bradford
Current Institution: University of Bradford
Date of Award: 2014
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Abstract:
This thesis explores the roles of women of faith in peacebuilding in the conflict between the Gusii and Maasai of South-western Kenya. While religion has at times legitimated women’s exclusion and predominantly created male religious elite figures in peacebuilding, I demonstrate how women of faith deploy religious resources for peace. Acting within complex unequal gendered socio-cultural conditions and positions, the women of faith deploy religious faith as an identity, motivation, and legitimating moral authority and voice in peacebuilding. Gendered barriers hinder them from finding status and a place in formal peacebuilding mechanisms alongside males, but still the women of faith struggle and develop an attitude and disposition of moral influence, and faith power that facilitates them to act as agents in peacebuilding. The women of faith deploy religious resources in mourning and burial rituals of healing and reconciliation, in everyday spiritual practices of sharing lives, and through services that provide security and protection especially for children, the elderly, the injured and the infirm. Religion enables women to establish protective infrastructure through women of faith networks and organizations that provide services to the community, mobilize human capital, and conduct outreach and community engagement. I show that even as the women of faith deploy these religious resources for peacebuilding, they recognize the gendered barriers they are faced with and the public peacebuilding mechanisms that they are excluded from. Deployment of religious resources for peacebuilding intersects with gender identities and relations, and in some instances religious faith transcends established gender norms and gendered barriers or even removes them.
Supervisor: Not available Sponsor: Not available
Qualification Name: Thesis (Ph.D.) Qualification Level: Doctoral
EThOS ID: uk.bl.ethos.668661  DOI: Not available
Keywords: Faith, Gender, Peacebuilding, Women’s roles, Gusii, Maasai, Kenya, Religious resources, Spiritual practices
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