Book review: Sex and International Tribunals: The Erasure of Gender from the War Narrative
| Date | 01 December 2015 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0010836715597949 |
| Author | Johanna Mannergren Selimovic |
| Published date | 01 December 2015 |
| Subject Matter | Book reviews |
Book reviews 551
of Europeans. As is often argued in the wider academic literature, our relations to others
are often more concerned with constructing a particular image of ourselves, for
ourselves. This book focuses on a particular set of selves, and provides a point from which
others may explore the potentially co-constitutive relation to their Chinese others.
This critique of ‘liberal barbarism’ clearly has implications in the contemporary
world. The book asserts that the tensions and attitudes that lead to the burning of
Yuanmingyuan live on in contemporary Western liberalism, although it never goes as far
as to argue this case in a sustained manner. As such, it should be of interest as a case
study to those who engage in wider debates about neo-colonialism and liberal warfare –
debates that often lack the empirical detail and rigour provided in this volume,
particularly regarding China. With regards to the Chinese context, the timeliness of
Ringmar’s book will also undoubtedly make it appeal to many. As the author notes in his
conclusion, the burning of Yuanmingyuan has become part of the Chinese Communist
Party’s mythology of ‘National Humiliation’ (guochi). In this narrative, constructed
memories of past suffering and humiliation are deployed to explain why Party rule is
beneficial and necessary. Again, this means that this is not simply a book about a
historical event. Most of all, it should be read as an intervention into important political
debates over the contemporary efforts to build not only a particular image of benevolent
Western liberalism, but also a particular Chinese sense of self and the legitimisation of
Party rule to which it contributes under Xi Jinping.
Finally, the author should be commended for the forthright and accessible style in
which the book is written. Where many theoretically informed works get bogged down
in obscure language, this book is so smoothly written that it will not only lend itself well
to undergraduate teaching, but also makes for a most pleasant reading experience.
Astrid HM Nordin
Lancaster University, UK
Chiseche Salome Mibenge, Sex and International Tribunals: The Erasure of Gender from the War
Narrative, University of Pennsylvania Press: Philadelphia, PA, 2013.
When societies move from war to peace, a multitude of narratives is produced as various
stakeholders attempt to formulate authoritative accounts of the past. Chiseche Salome
Mibenge argues, in her book Sex and International Tribunals: The Erasure of Gender
from the War Narrative, that tribunals and truth commissions, far from being neutral con-
veyors of facts and law, in fact take part in this narrative struggle. Their legal and quasi-
legal proceedings produce particular narratives that have a deep bearing on how we
understand political violence and in particular its impact on gender power relations.
Mibenge shows in a compelling narrative of her own that that these legal stories reinscribe
norms that obscure women’s agency and contribute to an essentialization of gender roles.
The focus of her investigation is on three key institutions that have been instrumental
in the development of transitional justice: the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
(ICTR), the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL), and the Sierra Leonean Truth and
Reconciliation Commission (TRC). She reads the legal narratives produced by these
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