Work
Select Papers
Elizabeth Mesok, Nora Naji, and Darja Schildknect. 2024. “White Supremacy and the Racial Logic of the Global Preventing and Countering Extremism Agenda.” Third World Quarterly. Under Review.
Elizabeth Mesok and Darja Schildknect. 2024. “Police, Fear, and International Compliance in Kenya’s Counterterrorism Agenda.” Security Dialogue. Under Review.
Naji, Nora and Darja Schildknect. 2024. “Containing the ‘Suspect’ Other: Perpetuating Colonial Spaces Through a Global Counterterrroism Regime in Nairobi.” Geopolitics. https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2023.2294803
Mesok, Elizabeth. 2022. “Beyond Instrumentalization: Gender and Agency in the Prevention of Extreme Violence in Kenya.” Critical Studies on Terrorism 15(3): 610-631.
Mesok, Elizabeth. 2022. “Counterinsurgency, Community Participation, and the Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism Agenda in Kenya.” Small Wars and Insurgencies 33 (45): 720-741.
Naji, Nora and Darja Schildknecht. 2021. “Securing Swiss Futurity: The Gefährder Figure and Switzerland’s Counterterrorism Regime.” Social Sciences 10 (12): 484. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci10120484
Select Talks
(Darja Schildknecht) Talk at Feminist Theory and Gender Studies Global Seminar (FTGS) Voices Seminar Series by War Studies, King’s College London, on „Gendered Transformations of private security”, 2 November 2022, virtual (London, UK)
(Darja Schildknecht) Lecture at King’s College London, Department of War Studies, on “Counter-Terrorism, P/CVE & Gender: Understanding gender as a strategic tool and as a level of analysis” (as part of the module “Gendering Global Politics”), 20 February 2023, London, UK
(Nora Naji) Talk on “Out of Africa: Built-in security for outsiders on Lamu Island” in the framework of the project “African State Architecture” at SOAS university, 25 January 2024, London, UK
https://www.soas.ac.uk/about/event/out-africa-built-security-outsiders-lamu-island
(Nora Naji) Talk on “Commodifying peace: Intimate warfare and prevention economies in Kenya” in the Visiting Scholars Workshop Series at Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University, 24 April 2023, New York, US.
https://chrgj.org/event/visiting-scholars-workshop-nora-naji/
Conferences
6 June 2024 — Peace and Security Now: Reflections on New Frontiers and Challenges in Peacemaking
Now, more than ever, discussions about the peace and security sector must attend to the logics of gender and race. Inspired by feminist theory and practice that insists upon critical interrogation of systems of power that uphold and perpetuate war, militarism, and violent security practices, this conference brings together academics and practitioners to discuss what is most at stake in contemporary peacemaking. From the enduring impact of the global war on terror, to the promotion of women’s inclusion in security institutions such as military and police, to the complex intersection of the humanitarian, peace, and development sectors: this conference promises a provocative look at the most pressing and urgent issues facing our world—and the possibilities for peace—today.
Link to registration (eventbrite)
26 May 2021 — ‘Violent Extremism,’ Gender and Human Rights: Critical Approaches to Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism
The first conference of the Gender, War, and Security Research Group at the University of Basel’s Center for Gender Studies, this online conference emerged from the early considerations of the research project on the preventing and countering violent extremism agenda. We brought together internationally renowned scholars and practitioners to discuss the legal and ethical challenges of violence prevention within the global counterterrorism architecture known as P/CVE. The conference’s keynote was given by Fionnuala Ní Aolain, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, one of the most important figures speaking on this topic today.