Rape: Politics and Theory in War and Peace

Rape spans the spectrum of peacebuilding, development and justice issues. It also invokes core concepts of gender and power. In this article, the author looks at three sites of rape, and each site raises a specific set of considerations. These three sites are: in war; in peacetime; and in cross-cultural context. The last section raises questions about how scholars are implicated in research, and what the implication of their research are. The author has intentionally selected sites that are not normally considered together in an effort to explore further some of the critical ramifications of rape. She aims to be able to look at the politics, practices, and ontology of sexual violence in a way that begins to cross class, gender, conflict, and culture zones.