Emily Clifford

Department: College of Social Sciences and International Studies
Discipline: Strategy and Security Institute

Project Summary

The working title of my research is: Killing, Caring, and Counterinsurgency: French Legacy in the Sahel from a Feminist Perspective. I aim to use a feminist lens to critically analyse the gendered formation and legacy of French counterterror operations in the Sahel region of West Africa, assessing French military masculinities and their impact on the nature and composition of the G5 Sahel Force.

Patriarchy, heterosexism, masculinity, and violence outline a system of power relations inherent in military operations, allowing military masculinities to form between ideals of ‘soldiering’ and ‘manliness’. In recent years, military masculinities have evolved to the aims of counterinsurgency, counterterror, stabilisation, peacekeeping and peacebuilding, yet, the ‘reluctant’ French peacekeeper has resisted evolution. France’s Sahelian counterterror Operation Barkhane, grown out of 2013’s Operation Serval in Mali, aims to roll-back Islamist insurgencies and make way for regional stabilisation and political settlement.

Despite boasting tactical success, arguably the character of French missions in Africa has reinforced the very insecurity it professes to fight. Locating French intervention at the intersections of gender, militarism, and post-colonial practices, I aim to reassess the former imperial ruler’s ties to Africa and deconstruct the wider French project of militarised post-colonial influence.

Supervisory Team

Dr Sergio Catignani (University of Exeter)

Professor Paul Higate (University of Bath)

Wider Research Interests

Feminism, critical military studies, human rights, human security, masculinities, counterinsurgency, security studies, international development