Book Review: General Politics: Women, Peace and Security
| DOI | 10.1111/1478-9302.12016_84 |
| Date | 01 May 2013 |
| Published date | 01 May 2013 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
and it is recommended reading for academics and edu-
cators alike.
Johannes Fritz
(University of Erlangen-Nuremberg)
Citizenship, Migrant Activism and the Politics of
Movement by Peter Nyers and Kim Rygiel (eds).
Abingdon: Routledge, 2012. 188pp.,£80.00, ISBN 978
0 415 60577 9
This book is a collection of essays which analyse several
case studies of the emergence of new forms of citizen-
ship and migrant activism in regimes that restrict
migrants’ rights and mobility. The aim of the authors
and contributors is to investigate how migrants act and
create new forms of political engagement, in order to
conceptualise the effects of the politics of movement
on citizenship issues.
The main arguments of editors Peter Nyers and Kim
Rygiel are: (1) the experience of mobility produces
new forms of citizenship and of being political; (2)
people lacking formal citizenship status are involved in
practices and ways of engaging in citizenship when
they claim rights to it; and (3) the politics of mobility
and movement has significance for the spaces and
forms of citizenship.
Among the contributors there are both scholars of
migration and citizenship studies and activists of
migrant rights associations. However, they all share a
deep knowledge of critical theory about migration,
citizenship and security, and they all start from the
assumption that migration is a creative and constituent
force which is able to redraw the map of power rela-
tionships at local and global levels.
The book is aimed at students and scholars, but
many essays may provide useful methodological sugges-
tions and good practice for activists of migrant rights
associations and policy officers.
It provides good coverage both of the geographical
areas of the case studies (host countries and provenance
of migrants) and the typology of the status of non-
citizen migrants (refugees, regular and undocumented
migrants), all of which is analysed in the book. Besides
being well written, all the essays are interesting and
provide useful information about the way migrants and
migrant rights organisations behave; that is why I
would say that the book succeeds in investigating the
themes on which it focuses. But I cannot say that it
provides significant advances at a theoretical level, since
all the chapters have a descriptive approach:groups and
movements are described and interpreted in the light of
pre-existing literature, but without innovation. More-
over,some of the contributors’ arguments are not veri-
fied, because they are rather intuitive. For example,
saying, as Jean McDonald does in chapter 7, that when
services are made accessible to people with precarious
status then governmentalised borders can be circum-
vented (p. 127) is nothing but an obvious remark.
Despite this the book may be a good starting point for
more fruitful research, from a theoretical point of view.
Angelo Scotto
(University of Pavia)
Women, Peace and Security by Funmi Oloni-
sakin,Keren Barnes and Eka Ikpe (eds). Abingdon:
Routledge, 2011. 242pp., £80.00, ISBN 978 0 415
58797 6
The United Nations Security Council Resolution
(UNSCR) 1325 was adopted in 2000 with peace
building and peacemaking at its core.The aim was to
get women into the process of post-conflict recon-
struction and to include a gendered dimension to vio-
lence. It is now over a decade since its birth, and its
implementation has been a source of debate.This book
goes straight to the heart of the implementation prob-
lems of UNSCR 1325 by discussing reasons for the gap
between policy and practice. Funmi Olonisakin, Keren
Barnes and Eka Ikpe, and the contributors to this
volume are ambitious in their aims as they try to
explain why UNSCR 1325 fails in terms of making a
real impact at national and regional levels. Most of the
contributors adopt a narrative approach, seeking to
illuminate the complexities and dilemmas that stand in
opposition to the advancement and success of the reso-
lution. The chapters are well organised into two case
study sections. The first section introduces the imple-
mentation of UNSCR 1325 in different countries,
while the second section provides regional case studies.
Most of the sections adopt a similar theme that intro-
duces UNSCR 1325 in various contexts, explains the
challenges and dilemmas and provides conclusions that
seek to provide alternatives to the current practices of
the resolution in their case studies.
The editors and authors miss an opportunity to
discuss an innovative approach to the implementation
278 GENERAL POLITICS
© 2013 TheAuthors. Political Studies Review © 2013 Political Studies Association
Political Studies Review: 2013, 11(2)
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