BRANDON, Man. – Violence against women has always been an urgent issue for survivors, feminist activists, and concerned academics. And yet, the development industry has only recently placed anti-violence initiatives at the top of their agenda.
Why has this issue come to matter to the development industry now?
Dr. Corinne L. Mason, a Brandon University (BU) professor, takes a deeper look at several global anti-violence campaigns, and the motivations behind them, in her first book, Manufacturing Urgency: The Development Industry and Violence Against Women.
Manufacturing Urgency examines three major cases studies: “The Hillary Doctrine,” the World Bank’s “Cost of Violence” report, and the United Nations’ “UNiTE to End Violence Against Women” and “Say NO” campaigns.
“Ultimately, I argue that, in the development industry, some issues around violence against women are considered ‘now’ issues, while others are left until ‘later,’” said Mason, an Associate Professor in BU’s Gender and Women’s Studies and Sociology Departments. “International Relations scholar Cynthia Enloe calls this ‘later’ a ‘patriarchal time zone.’ Following her call for feminist curiosity, my research into the anti-violence development industrial complex led to the conclusion that yes, violence against women is an urgent issue, but it is only considered urgent by development institutions and actors when it fits into the existing agendas of organizations or connects to other objectives. Everything else – everything complex, nuanced, localized – is left for ‘later.’”
Published by the University of Regina Press, Manufacturing Urgency is available at Amazon.ca. A book launch will be held at the Congress Expo Event Space, Mattamy Athletic Centre, at Ryerson University in Toronto on Saturday, May 27 from 2–3 p.m. The launch will include a discussion featuring Mason and Dr. Kathryn Trevenen of the University of Ottawa.
“Dr. Mason is a diligent, inquisitive and productive researcher who continues to cast a discerning eye on contemporary society and culture,” said Dr. Demetres Tryphonopoulos, Dean of Arts at BU. “Manufacturing Urgency constitutes an important work that seeks the truth about anti-violence initiatives worldwide, especially as they involve women.”
Mason has been published in several top-tier international academic journals, and is the editor of the upcoming collection Queer Development Studies: A Reader, which will be published by Routledge International Handbooks later this year. Her research project “Queering the Mainstream: LGBT Rights and the Developmental Industrial Complex,” has received grants from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Brandon University Research Committee.
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