Schriftenreihe des Sozialwissenschaftlichen Instituts der Bundeswehr Women in the Military and Armed Conflict

As usual on these occasions, the ISA's Research Committee: Armed Forces & Conflict Resolution (RC 01) organized several sessions dealing with issues of military sociology, the sociology of war and conflict resolution. The debate about the role of women in war, violent conflict and the military is not only a long and ongoing one; it is also a heated and controversial one. The contributions to this anthology come from experts in the field who approach the topic from various angles thus offering different and, at times, diverging perspectives. The reader will therefore gain in-depth insight into the most important aspects and positions in the debate. This collection of articles basically originates in Durban, South Africa. In late July 2006, the International Sociological Association (ISA) held its World Congress of Sociology in the beautiful landscape of Southern Africa. As usual on these occasions, the ISA's Research Committee: Armed Forces & Conflict Resolution (RC 01) organized several sessions dealing with issues of military sociology, the sociology of war and conflict resolution. One of these sessions looked at Women in the Military: National and International Per­ spectives and was chaired by Helena Carreiras from Portugal and Leena Parmar from India. As this session turned out to be very interesting and substantial, we, the editors deemed it worthwhile to make these papers available to a larger audi­ ence and thus contribute to the ongoing debate about war, the armed forces and the role of women in both war, violent conflict and the military. This an­ thology, then, contains the revised and updated versions of the papers that have been presented in Durban plus one or the other article that has been written specifically for the purposes of this book.