The aim of this research is to study the Ukrainian implementation of UNSCR 1325 from a feminist security perspective. This has been done by focusing on the pillars of participation and protection. The pillars have been operationalized into indicators whereas participation is analyzed in terms of women's participation in civil society, politics, the security sector, peace processes and the participation of IDPs. Protection has been analyzed in terms of protection from conflict related sexual violence and gender-based violence, protection of women IDPs, protection from trafficking, and economic and labor protection. The method used is an empirical case study where the case of Ukraine is explained through a feminist security perspective. The findings show that while the Ukrainian government has taken on some measures to increase the participation and protection of women, there are still challenges remaining in both areas. Finally, this research has contributed with bridging the gap between the work on UNSCR 1325, feminist security studies and the Ukrainian context.

The global Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda has been established to address the widerange of issues and challenges faced by women in conflict and post-conflict situations, and acknowledge the vital role that women play in peace processes. Previous research has shown that although the women refugees are more vulnerable than their male counterparts, this group is still widely underrepresented in WPS policy. There is a gap between the WPS agenda and research on refugees. Women are only recognised as actors within the WPS agenda when they are geographically in the zone of conflict, and this does not extend to women who have been forced to flee. This thesis aims to investigate the policy representation of refugee and displaced women within African WPS national action plans (NAPs). In doing so, the research explores the theoretical concept of human security, and how it is related to feminist security studies and refugees, in order to understand the importance and relevance of including refugee and displaced women into national WPS policy. Within the theoretical discussion, the theories that have guided this thesis are also discussed, namely feminist research methodology and ‘What’s the Problem Represented to Be?’ (WPR) as an analytical tool. The material for analysis is all available African WPS-NAPs, there are 22 of them used in this research. These NAPs are analysed using a multi-method approach, three methods used to answer the research questions. First, a qualitative case study to ascertain if refugees and displaced people are represented in these WPS-NAPs, secondly, a thematic analysis to critically analyse these representions as they relate to four pillars central to the WPS framework, and finally, an illustrative case study of the Cameroon to offer descriptive insight into how policy problem representations are implemented in the practical world. The main conclusions reveal that African states do mentioned refugees and displaced people in WPS-NAPs, acknowledging the validity of the ‘women in conflict on the move’ actor within WPS; secondly, it concludes that each African WPS-NAP analysed creates a multitude of problem representations, and discusses the policy implications of this according to WPR theory. Finally, it concludes that the actual implementation of WPS-NAPs in the realm of refugee and displaced persons is still not fullyrecognised, despite the inclusion in policy. Therefore, more specific policy actions should be integrated into WPP-NAP policy planning and drafting in order to prevent fueling the real life insecurity of these groups, making them more marginalized and vulnerable.

This thesis aims to investigate the narrative created around the covid-19 virus as a security threat during the first months of the pandemic. Speeches made by three political leaders, namely Emmanuel Macron, Boris Johnson and Angela Merkel, held in March 2020 are analysed in depth using a feminist narrative framework. The overall purpose is to investigate how a gendered reading of the portrayal of the covid-19 pandemic as a security threat can contribute to the already existing feminist research on how gender is both part of, and affected by, the construction of security narratives. The research questions concern whether the pandemic was militarised by political leaders, and if so, how this is done through the construction of the narrative. Furthermore, it is investigated how masculinity and femininity come to expression within the narrative of covid-19 as a security threat, and how this differs from the gendered hierarchies in relation to “traditional” security threats already outlined in previous feminist research on security. The result of the analysis shows that the pandemic is clearly being militarised. Traditional gender constructions are however altered, for example when feminine roles are assigned to groups traditionally not perceived as feminine. The result shows the flexibility of gender roles, but also the need to sustain a division between some groups as feminine and some groups as masculine. The very existence of hierarchies is seemingly more important than which physical bodies take place within that hierarchy.

Post-modern feminist security studies explore how our discourse about gender and war affects the construction of security as a concept. Military narratives valorizing the masculine over the feminine have long marginalized women warriors. In recent years, images of the torture and abuse of detainees have appropriated the representation of women interrogators during the Global War on Terrorism in particular. This research applied interpretative phenomenological analysis to the narratives of women interrogators in order to challenge the silence concerning their lived experiences by addressing how women interrogators understand their experiences both as woman and as interrogators, and how they negotiated socially constructed contradictions between these identities. Based on an analysis of semi-structured interviews with eight participants, the findings produced seven, interrelated themes. First, the findings explored the integration of gender with other markers of identity. Next, the findings demonstrated women interrogators recognize gender as a context-dependent role negotiated within the military institution through the development and demonstration of technical prowess. Then, the findings described interrogation as a complex adaptive system in which women interrogators harnessed to achieve their goals. Finally, the findings determined that the intersection of women interrogators’ identities and their interactions in the context of interrogation operations generated the perception of women interrogators as non-threatening. Women interrogators learned to exploit the meaning of this emergent phenomenon through introspection and the development of self-awareness.

With the recent take back of the country by the Taliban, Afghan women’s experiences of[in]security have again become top-of mind for many. Yet, this renewed focus perpetuates anexisting imagery of Afghan women as powerless victims, with a few rebellious heroines. Thisimage, instrumentalizing women’s experiences, fuels different political agendas that are oftennot helpful to the women. To provide a more authentic image of the women’s sensemakingand experiences of [in]security, I therefore interviewed five Afghan women using a life-storymethodology where the women were included in all stages of the research process. Duringthis project, I took a feminist and critical approach to security: the woman herself defined theconcept, its impact on her life, and how she managed it. Contrary to other similar researchprojects, I asked the women about times they felt safe instead of unsafe to lessen any retraumatization, and to emphasize their opportunity for agency. Listening to the women’sstories, I interpreted the every-day as a site where they enhanced their agency in the face ofloss of control brought on by pervasive insecurities, something they described as a continuousprocess to create safe spaces. During this process, I identified an analytical pattern of how thewomen understood, and thus went about creating these safe spaces, that of adjustment andresistance. Albeit with movement between the two. This pattern shows how complex thewomen’s understanding and reaction to insecurities were as well as their responses, which iskey to understand for any future support for the women of Afghanistan.