This paper examines under-recognised forms of violence facing women in post-conflict societies. While traditional studies of political violence focus on physical violence and, in the context of women in post-conflict environments, sexual violence in particular, this paper explores other iterations of acts of violence. Drawing on Derrida’s principle of différance, I argue that the conflict narratives retroactively assigned to women in the post-conflict period constitute a form of political violence. Using empirical evidence from Colombia and the Philippines, I compare the forms that this violence can take and explore the ways in which such violence serves to deprive women of political agency. The paper also explores women’s responses to these forms of political violence; by considering the ways in which female ex-combatants in Colombia and displaced women in Mindanao have challenged hegemonic narratives, this study also examines women’s efforts to counteract political violence and prevent its recurrence. Using archival and interview data, I focus on three post-conflict narratives of violence related to women in the conflict era: that of women as confined to the private sphere, the narrative of women as passive victims, and the narrative of women as apolitical observers of peace processes. The paper first explores the violence involved in the creation of these narratives, then considers women’s responses to the narratives and the long-term implications of such responses in discouraging future political violence in all its forms.
