Dr Maria Tanyag2, Professor Bethan Greener3, Mr Romitesh Kant2, Dr Samanthi Gunawardana1, Dr Henrietta Mcneill2
1Monash University, Australia, 2Australian National University, Australia, 3Massey University, Aotearoa / New Zealand
Biography:
Bethan Greener is a Professor of International Relations and Head of School at Massey University, Aotearoa New Zealand. She has published on issues such as the rise of police in international peace support operations, liberalism and the use of force, gender and peacebuilding and security issues in the South Pacific. She has taught at the NZDF Command and Staff College, been actively involved in the UN Police Division’s International Policing Advisory Council, CSCAP-NZ, the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs, and Asia: NZ Track II diplomacy programmes.
Romitesh Kant is a PhD candidate at the Department of Pacific Affairs, ANU. His research explores the intersections of gender, politics, and power in Fiji, focusing on how masculinities are embedded in political institutions. He is also an Adjunct Research Fellow at La Trobe University.
Samanthi J. Gunawardana is a Senior Lecturer in Development Studies at Monash University’s School of Social Science, Faculty of Arts. Her research focuses on feminist political economy, specifically examining employment, labour, and livelihoods in conflict-affected contexts.
Henrietta McNeill is a Research Fellow in the Department of Pacific Affairs, Australian National University. Her research focus is Pacific regional security and the security-migration nexus, particularly transnational crime, criminal deportations, border security, citizenship, and security cooperation. Henrietta’s PhD thesis won the IASOC award for Best PhD Thesis/Dissertation in 2024. She was also a 2021-22 Fulbright scholar visiting the University of Hawai’i, UCLA, and Lewis and Clark Law School (Oregon); and was named a La Trobe Indo-Pacific Emerging Leader.
Maria Tanyag is a senior lecturer in the Department of International Relations at the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs of the Australian National University, and an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) Fellow. She is the author of The Global Politics of Sexual and Reproductive Health (Oxford University Press, 2024). Maria specialises in critical and feminist approaches to global peace and security, focusing on the Asia Pacific region and the Philippines in particular.
Abstract:
Despite burgeoning scholarly and policy interest on regional security dynamics across Asia and the Pacific, gender as an analytical lens is conspicuously absent in mainstream discussions. Its significance remains poorly understood or worse, explicitly devalued. Yet, this neglect is paradoxical given the deep embeddedness of strongman politics in a region where security decisions are so clearly the arena of men. This roundtable seeks to examine the various ways in which gender enriches our understanding of ongoing militarisation and re-intensifying geopolitical rivalry in the region. Among the themes to be discussed include the causal role of masculinities in driving state conflict and competition as these intersect with race, colonialism and capitalism; the gendered implications or consequences of geopolitical rivalry to peace and development goals; and how the militarisation of the Pacific ‘bleeds into’ all aspects of political, economic and socio-cultural life within and beyond the region. Speakers will emphasise the importance of pluralism in research methods and approaches as well as corroboration of various sources of knowledge particularly for the inclusion of indigenous perspectives and in attending to the complexities presented by highly diverse, plural legal societies. Finally, the roundtable constitutes an urgent step in facilitating dialogues toward the greater engagement of gender in regional security decision-making of Asia and the Pacific.