"I always think, when can women become same?" : women's participation in the Bougainville peace process and post-war political order
Armed conflict terminates the life of its victims and radically transforms the realities of its survivors. Participation in conflict and its transitions is constrained by its (gendered) social contexts (Sjoberg (2016) quoted in Kaufman/Williams 2016a: 205). The Autonomous Region of Bougainville (ARoB) is a region where a decade long conflict caused death and devastation, which was followed by new beginnings in the form of significant change in gender relations and women's political participation in particular. The initial cause for this transformation was the locally called Bougainville Crisis (1989-1998), the second longest and deadliest conflict in the South Pacific since the end of World War II in Papua New Guinea's (PNG) easternmost province (Boege 2009: 206). A mining dispute about revenue shares, employment opportunities, and environmental damage caused the conflict (Regan 2010: 17). After failed negotiations with the mining company and central government, protest formed, followed by repressive action of government forces that led to a secession war from Papua New Guinea (PNG) (Boege 2008b: 1–2). Turning from a war of civilians against 'foreign' government troops, the conflict later escalated into a war among Bougainvilleans themselves. Due to customary principles and methods, traditional dispute settlement in Bougainville requires the participation and the commitment of all members of the parties involved in a conflict (Boege 2011: 448). Bougainville's women played a leading role in resolving this conflict: Their contributions to peacebuilding, both in localized contexts and within formalized peace processes, are celebrated within the country and have been accorded respect across the Pacific Islands region (George 2019: 475). Women then used this opportunity, and the post-war period of political transformation to successfully negotiate for more political representation. In 2004, as the first and so far, only island in the Pacific region, Bougainville introduced three seats in its regional parliament that ...
