Beyond Vulnerability: Exploring the Political Agency of Male Survivors of Wartime Sexual Violence

尽管与冲突有关的针对男子的性暴力发生的频率比想象的要高，但这些罪行始终没有得到充分的研究。现有的少数研究主要集中在男性幸存者经历的性别伤害和脆弱性上。因此，战时对男性的性暴力和男性幸存者的生活现实迄今都是通过脆弱性的框架来审查的，将男性幸存者描绘成被动的、受羞辱的和被剥夺了性别身份的人。然而，尽管男性性暴力幸存者在性别上很脆弱，但他们如何也积极参与和应对与冲突有关的经历和性别伤害，从而行使各种形式的政治机构，这一点尚未得到探讨。为了解决文献中的这一空白，本项目询问：男性性暴力幸存者政治机构的不同形式和条件是什么？这一分析具有学术意义，因为它描绘了武装冲突和战时性暴力的性别动态，特别是男性幸存者的经历的更全面和更有细微差别的经验性图景。因此，这些以经验为基础的见解还有助于更广泛地深入了解冲突对平民和受战争影响社区的长期影响。利用乌干达北部和斯里兰卡作为探索性案例研究，因此，比较分析超越了以前侧重于男性幸存者的性别脆弱性或战区妇女的政治机构的研究。将通过解释性和人种学定性方法收集新的经验数据，包括关键信息提供人访谈、以团体为基础的故事讲述会议和与男性幸存者的生活故事口述历史访谈。该项目阐明了男性性暴力幸存者很少听到的声音，从而描绘了一个具有学术和政治意义的不同类型的战争故事。通过关注男性性暴力幸存者的生活现实，该项目将对国际关系、和平与冲突研究和性别研究的交叉学术机构作出新的经验和理论贡献。具体地说，该项目致力于研究，以极大地促进战时性暴力的学术研究，从而推动关于冲突的性别审查的知识前沿。

Although conflict-related sexual violence against men occurs more frequently than assumed, these crimes remain consistently under-researched. The few existing studies primarily focus on the gendered harms and vulnerabilities as experienced by male survivors. As a result, wartime sexual violence against men, and male survivors' lived realities, have thus far exclusively been examined through the frame of vulnerabilities, portraying male survivors as passive, humiliated and stripped of their gender identities. However, how in spite of their gendered vulnerabilities, male sexual violence survivors also actively engage with and respond to their conflict-related experiences and gendered harms, and thereby exercise myriad forms of political agency, has not yet been explored. To address this lacuna in the literature, this project asks: What are the different forms of and conditions for male sexual violence survivors' political agency? This analysis is of scholarly significance, as it paints a more holistic and nuanced empirically-grounded picture of the gender dynamics of armed conflict and wartime sexual violence generally, and of male survivors' experiences specifically. These empirically-grounded insights thereby also foster an in-depth understanding regarding the long-lasting effects of conflict on civilians and war-affected communities more broadly. Utilizing Northern Uganda and Sri Lanka as explorative case studies, the comparative analysis thereby moves beyond previous research that has focused either on the gendered vulnerabilities of male survivors or the political agency of women in warzones. Novel empirical data will be collected through interpretative and ethnographic qualitative methods, including key-informant interviews, group-based story-telling sessions and life story oral history interviews with male survivors. Elucidating the seldom-heard voices of male sexual violence survivors, the project thus paints a different kind of war story with academic and political significance. By examining the lived realities of male sexual violence survivors with attention to agency, the project will make novel empirical and theoretical contributions to intersecting bodies of scholarship on international relations, peace and conflict research and gender studies. Specifically, the project ventures into research to significantly advance scholarship on wartime sexual violence, thereby moving forward the frontiers of knowledge on gendered examinations of conflict.