Professional Networks of Gender Experts in International Peace Missions: Achieving Feminist Goals

Gender experts – as a professional role within international peacekeeping and peacebuilding organisations, tasked with leading implementation of institutional gender goals – have come to play a key part in international peace missions. Previous feminist research has focused on the role of gender experts (Kunz and Prügl 2019), the work gender experts do (Carson 2016, Holvikivi 2021), the impact they have on gender mainstreaming and their ability to alter institutional practices to include gender considerations (Altan-Olcay 2020), and the institutional resistance they face (Ferguson 2015). However, we know little about the professional networks in which gender experts are embedded, or their development throughout a career, how these networks offer opportunities and pose constraints, and influence work outcomes. These professional networks play a role in achieving gender outcomes in international peace and security: and yet, there has been no attention paid to professional networks in this context. The paper draws together scholarship from sociology of professions, feminist global governance and critical peace and conflict studies to advance a network-based analysis of gender expertise. Interviews and Social Network Analysis focussing on gender experts who have worked in international peace and security missions in Kosovo (1999-ongoing) and Liberia (2004-2019) will draw out the impact that professional networks of gender expertise have on the work that they do, and the importance of these networks to achieving positive feminist and/or gendered work outcomes.