ABSTRACT

The Indian government has presented itself as a champion of gender mainstreaming in UN peacekeeping. At the same time, the domestic security sector in India continues to create a gender-segregated environment and experiences of uniformed women in the field show remaining barriers for gender equity. Given this contradiction, the article examines the ambivalence inherent to Indian gender mainstreaming of peacekeeping units. We argue that transnational norms, such as gender mainstreaming, are embedded in larger norm bundles, and we combine the literature of norm localization and norm contestation in our conceptual framework to illustrate how India localizes parts of the gender mainstreaming norm bundle whilst contesting others. We find that India’s localization of the gender mainstreaming norm has meant to pursue an asymmetric gender-parity approach between different branches of the Indian security forces and that it has fomented a division of labour within the police corps. Moreover, we illustrate how India contests the idea of placing women in security-sensitive areas, in combat roles, and gender-integrated police units.

摘要

印度政府将自己展示为联合国维和行动中性别主流化的倡导者。与此同时，印度的国内安全部门继续营造一种性别隔离的环境，穿制服的女性在该领域的经验表明，性别平等仍然存在障碍。鉴于这一矛盾，本文探讨了印度维和部队性别主流化所固有的矛盾心理。我们认为，跨国规范，例如性别主流化，嵌入在更大的规范束中，我们将规范本地化和规范竞争的文献结合在我们的概念框架中，以说明印度如何在与其他规范束竞争的同时本地化性别主流化规范束的一部分。我们发现，印度对性别主流化规范的本地化意味着在印度安全部队的不同部门之间寻求一种不对称的性别平等方法，并在警察部队内部引发了分工。此外，我们还说明了印度如何反对将女性置于安全敏感地区、战斗角色和性别整合警察部队的想法。