Feminist Action at the Negotiation Table: 2010-2016 Colombian Peace Talks with Elizabeth Corredor, Bryn Mawr College

​​​​​​Gender mainstreaming and peacemaking are fundamentally about spurring institutional change. Much of the literature on gendering peace negotiations does not explicitly address the institutional nature of these spheres. Using a feminist institutionalist framework, Dr. Corredor analyzes the 2010–2016 Colombian peace talks to uncover the endogenic formal and informal processes that both enabled and constrained feminist work and the eventual incorporation of a gender perspective within the final agreement. She shows that Colombia’s exceptional gender perspective in its 2016 peace agreement was due not just to the inclusion of women at the negotiation table but also paradoxically because of and despite continued gendered logics that prioritized the masculine over the feminine. These findings demonstrate that to understand gender mainstreaming outcomes in peace processes we must not simply account for how many women and which women are at the table, but also for the gendered logics within negotiation spaces.

Dr. Corredor (she/her) is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science at Bryn Mawr College. She received her Ph.D. from Rutgers University in Political Science in 2021. She also holds an M.A. from the University of Chicago in Latin American Studies and a certificate in Women and Gender Studies from Rutgers University. Dr. Corredor’s research centers on feminist international relations and comparative politics, with a focus on peace negotiations and agreements, gender mainstreaming, and Latin America. Her book manuscript, which is currently under review at Cambridge University Press, argues that to better understand the gendering of peace negotiations and agreements at large, we must not only look at how many and which women are at the table but also at the gendered and spatial logics of peace negotiations to understand the gendered outcomes in peace agreements. Using the 2010-2016 Colombian peace process as a case study, she draws on an original framework that traces the efforts, locations, and gendered logics of both women’s and LGBTIQ+ groups, as well as those of the negotiation table, to unearth the ways in which women’s and LGBTIQ+ groups’ agendas were accepted, co-opted, and/or resisted within the negotiations and final agreementS. Dr. Corredor is the recipient of the 2022 American Political Science Association’s Best Dissertation Award in Women, Gender, and Politics and has been published in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Latin American Politics and Society, and International Negotiation: A Journal of Theory and Practice.

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This event is co-sponsored by the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School and the Program on Negotiation (PON) at Harvard Law School.​

Persons with disabilities who would like to request accommodations or have questions about physical access may contact Laura Botero at laura_botero@hks.harvard.edu or 617-384-7575 in advance of the program or visit.​