Worldly Encounters: The Politics of Global Governance and Women’s Human Rights in East Africa A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Johanna Engelina Koomen IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Adviser: Raymond Duvall June 2009 © Johanna Koomen 2009 Acknowledgements I could not have started or finished this project without Bud Duvall’s on-going support, advice and encouragement. Thank you so much for your kindness and for always finding something worthwhile in my endless drafts. I am also very grateful to Dan Kelliher, Richa Nagar, August Nimtz, and Kathryn Sikkink. Many thanks to all these wonderful teachers for challenging me to imagine how the world could be different. The invaluable guidance of Karen Brown, Jim Johnson, and the wonderful community surrounding the Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change encouraged me to investigate the possibility of doing fieldwork. Thank you to Sara Brown, Asli Calkivik, Alan Isaacman, Govind Nayak, and Amy Porter. Through the Gender in an International Context Workshop, organized by Karen, I received excellent feedback and insights from ICGC faculty and students. Rehema Kilonzo and Fortunata Songora generously did their best to teach me Swahili. Asante sana. Many thanks also everyone at the Political Science Department at the University of Minnesota. I must particularly mention how much I have learned from Susan Kang, Carrie Booth Walling, Jorge Rivas, Isaac Kamola, Michael Nordquist, Sheryl Lightfoot, Wanjiru Kamau-Rutenberg, Teri Caraway, Catherine Guisan, Steve Dickinson, Kartik Raj (who provided very helpful comments on an early draft of Chapter Three), Amy Skonieczny, Hunjoon Kim, Meghana Nayak, Latha Varadarajan and Ann Towns, as well as all the participants in Bud Duvall’s dissertation workshop. My gratitude to Cheryl Rackner, Judith Mitchell, Martin Sampson, Alexis Cuttance, Beth Ethier, Joanne Miller, and many others for helping me through graduate schools. GRADtrac UE, AFSCME 3800 workers, the wonderful General College community, and all their supporters have taught me that public education is always worth fighting for. On that note, I am grateful to Drs. Timothy Sinclair and Lincoln Allison at the University of Warwick’s Department of Politics and International Studies. Without their help and advice, I would not have been able to continue studying. This dissertation was written (over too many years) in Minnesota, the UK, and Arusha, Tanzania, with trips to Dar es Salaam, The Hague and Sarajevo. This was possible due to generous funding from the Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change, the Department of Political Science, the Office of International Programs, and a Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship from the University of Minnesota. I had the tremendous privilege of staying with Mama and Menye Nendi and their sprawling household of mamas, warriors, volunteers, and many children in Arusha and Eluwai. I learned so much from living in this nyumbani. My grateful thanks to all the Aang Serian activists and volunteers, including Eddie, Chaccalito, Anna Winterbottom, Martha L., Lesikar Ole Ngila, and particularly Gemma Burford Enolengila. Asante sana to Bibi, Babu, Uncle Lomo, Witness, and all their children. Mitra, Hussain and May Sabet and Claire Roache Kelly, please accept my sincere thanks for your very kind hospitality in Dar. Thank you also to Dr Hassouna for making my visits to the ICTR possible, as well as Alison Cole, Susan Lamb, and many others at the Tribunal. Dank je wel to Maartje Smitshuysen in The Hague, Steven Powles at the ICTY, and Haris Kec in Sarajevo. I’m grateful for much encouragement from my long-suffering friends, including Justin Rhodes, Naz Nelson, Sara Bielawski and family, William Everage, Donyelle and Adam Headington, Don Christiansen and friends, Michelle and Chris Schwartz, Bob and i Adina Schneeweis, Orkideh Mohajeri Anderson and family, Michael Vestlie, Dave Erickson, Nathan Bushey, Malika Bushey, the Baha’i community of Minneapolis, and my “Ruhi groups.” The Jalali family, Sondra and Jim Farganis, and the Rossmans provided much need guidance. My friend Steve Hanson covered for me at work so I could write early drafts of these chapters. I’m very thankful for the support of Jody and Gemma Koomen (and the little one on the way), my Van Hees family, Jeff and Marsha Olson, Marilyn Kramer, Neil Cameron and family, Anna Wachtmeister and family, Gohar, Payam, Na’im and family, and Alice Fixen. These wonderful years in Minnesota were possible because of my long-suffering friends: Serene Bushey, Michelle and Dino Palo, and Dion Farganis. Ron and Tahirih Bushey were my “American mom and dad.” I could not ever ask for more wonderful friends and neighbours than Kjersti Olson and Ali Hurtado. Their children Aziz, Adib and Inti are brilliant, shining stars who light up our lives. While heroically fighting for worker power, Mike Kramer was loving and patient during this long process. This dissertation – and everything else – is for my parents, Phil Koomen and Esmyr van Hees. The highlight of this process was living with them while I wrote the first full draft. My mother has proofread this dissertation so many times, she knows it much better than I do. Dank je wel, lieve mama. I know my parents have said many prayers for me and I hope one day I can do their love and support justice. I am extremely lucky… and even more grateful. ii Dedication To Phil and Esmyr. In loving memory of our friend, Jan Fixen. iii Abstract Global governance and international women’s human rights campaigns are always translated and negotiated locally. This dissertation examines the complex politics of international women’s human rights campaigns in East Africa by focusing on the social practices that characterize these projects. I investigate three campaigns to promote women’s human rights and empowerment. First, I examine efforts to promote legal redress for Rwandan victims of sexual violence during the 1994 Rwandan Genocide at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Second, I study projects seeking to eliminate “harmful traditional practices” such as female genital cutting in East Africa. I focus on initiatives in pastoralist villages in northern Tanzania, as well as efforts in Kenya and Uganda. Third, I turn my attention to emerging campaigns to promote African women’s “empowerment” and entrepreneurialism through microcredit and microfinance. By exploring the socially-situated practices of international women’s human rights campaigns – their translations and negotiations – this project seeks to illustrate how the boundaries and identities of global governance are unstably reconfigured and reproduced. iv Table of Contents Acknowledgments i Dedication iii Abstract iv List of Images vi Chapter One: Introduction…………………………………………………… 1 Chapter Two: Unexpected Negotiations……………………………………….. 52 Chapter Three: A Culture of Global Justice …………………………………… 85 Chapter Four: Global Governance and “Local Culture”……………………….. 151 Chapter Five: “We Want You To Change”…………………………………….. 205 Chapter Six: Contextual Conclusions ………………………………………….. 238 Bibliography 248 ICTR documents 276 Interviews 279 Images 284 Abbreviations 287 Glossary 289 v List of Images Figure 1.1 Photograph of a village meeting on FGM and HIV/AIDS, Enguiki Lutheran Church, Monduli District, Tanzania. 18 June 2006………… 281 Figure 1.2 Photograph of Lesikar Ole Ngila, Director of Aang Serian NGO. Eluwai, Monduli District, Tanzania. 20 July 2005…………………… 282 Figure 2.1 Photograph of a “focus group” of Olomayani women’s group members facilitated by Gemma Burford Enolengila. Eluwai, Monduli District, Tanzania. 20 June 2006……………………………………... 283 . vi “‘The global’ so often is imagined, implicitly, as somehow always out there, or even up there, but as always somewhere else in its origins. In fact it exists in very concrete forms in local places.”1 CHAPTER ONE Introduction: Women’s Human Rights as Worldly Encounters The proliferation of international efforts to promote women’s human rights has been widely documented. In particular, researchers have extensively examined the emergence of a transnational women’s human rights movement and the institutionalization of norms addressing gender-based violence since the 1980s.2 Yet few scholars of international politics or international law have paid attention to the day-to-day struggles that surround efforts to promote, negotiate, and translate these very consequential ideas in particular places. As a result, the study of international women’s human rights norms has largely focused on the people, places and spaces we describe as “global,” such as transnational activists, international conferences in Mexico City, Copenhagen, Vienna and Beijing, or international agencies based in Geneva, New York, and The Hague. Researchers do not usually concern themselves with the ways in which high-profile international ideas about women’s human rights are discussed in everyday situations, translated in specific settings, 1 Massey 2007, p.16 2 For example, Bunch 1994; Friedman1995; Keck and Sikkink 1998; Brown Thompson 1997 and 2002; Ashworth 1999; Meyer and Prügl 1999; Joachim 2003 and 2007; Gaer 2009 1 debated in community meetings, negotiated by rural outreach workers and village leaders, or promoted through the routine practices of international agencies. These are consequential and unfortunate omissions. International women’s human rights do not float in the global ether; they