BASS Philosophy and Data Analytics / Course details

How do the intersections of gender, sexuality, peace, and security matter to understanding the global politics of LGBTQ+ rights? Centered on both theoretical and practical dimensions, the unit examines how global policy frameworks, gender dynamics, and transnational feminist LGBTQ+ organizing contribute to the pursuit of inclusive and sustainable peace.

Part one of the unit begins with a critical overview of dominant paradigms of the global policy of LGBTQ+ rights. Students will engage with foundational texts in queer theory and feminist security studies to understand how heteronormativity and cisnormativity operate within security policies and institutions. This unit emphasizes the growing scholarship about how to understand and respond to LGBTQ+ experiences of conflict, including transgender scholarship. The unit also examines the vital contributions of transnational feminist and LGBTQ+ organizing to peacebuilding and security advocacy. Students will explore how grassroots movements challenge colonial, patriarchal, and capitalist systems that perpetuate violence and inequality. The course will spotlight the strategies employed by LGBTQ+ activists and organizations in advocating for queer politics globally, such as the decriminalization of homosexuality, pinkwashing and the protection of transgender individuals in contexts of political instability.

Part two turns to different perspectives on the global politics of LGBTQ+ rights. A key focus of the course is the role of policy-making in addressing LGBTQ+ rights, including in the peace and security sector. Students will analyze international instruments like United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security, critically assessing its applicability to LGBTQ+ populations. By reading policy work from movements like Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), OutRight Action International, and Colombia Diversa students will learn about the transformative power of coalition-building across borders. Another central theme is the interplay between local and global forces in shaping queer security. Students will critically examine how international LGBTQ+ advocacy intersects with, and sometimes clashes with, local cultural and political realities. Discussions will address the ethical dilemmas of imposing Western-centric models of LGBTQ+ rights in majority world contexts, exploring decolonial approaches to queer peace and security that prioritize local agency and knowledge.

In part three, students will experience a Crisis Management Simulation: Securing LGBTQ+ led by the organization Location Safety. Location Safety works globally with NGOs, Academic Institutions, campaigners and media groups, supporting them to become more resilient and better able to meet their duty of care responsibilities, even in the most challenging environments. During the simulation students will learn in real time how to put int practice lessons learned from the unit.

By engaging with real-world challenges through the simulation and through writing a policy brief, students will develop practical skills in policy analysis, advocacy, and coalition-building. By the end of the unit, students will have a nuanced understanding of how LGBTQ+ perspectives enrich peace and security discourses, and they will be equipped with the critical tools to advocate for inclusive, just, and sustainable policies in a variety of global contexts. 

The aim of the unit is to explore the intersections of gender, sexuality, peace, and security through the lens of LGBTQ+ rights (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer). The unit will equip students with the critical tools to analyze and understand how to draw on queer and feminist scholarship about conflict, displacement, and global policymaking as a dimension of rights making and of contestation of these rights. In emphasizing the lived experiences and vulnerabilities of LGBTQ+ communities worldwide students will find each week complicates traditional, state-centric understandings of security and safety.

The unit also foregrounds
- reframing peace and security studies through a focus on feminist and queer scholarship
- decolonizing LGBTQ+ rights advocacy, 
-localizing peacebuilding initiatives through LGBTQ+ experiences
- moving beyond the necropolitics of most policy coverage of LGBTQ+ lives in global politics

The unit is designed to bridge theory and practice, introducing students to foundational concepts in queer theory, feminist security studies, and transnational advocacy. It provides a critical examination of global policy frameworks, such as the Women, Peace, and Security agenda and the Yogyakarta Principles, and evaluates their inclusivity and effectiveness in addressing LGBTQ+ rights and protections. Through the study of real-world case studies, students will examine how colonial legacies, militarism, and systemic oppression perpetuate violence and exclusion, and how grassroots LGBTQ+ organizing works to disrupt these systems.

Part 1:  Background
1 Introduction to Global Politics of LGBTQ+ Rights
2 Queer and feminist Theoretical Foundations
3 Global Policy Frameworks for LGBTQ+ rights
4 LGBTQ+ Experiences in Conflict and Displacement

Part 2: Perspectives
7 Trans-ing Peace: Transgender Perspectives on Security
8 LGBTQ+ Global South Leadership in Peacebuilding
9 Responding to Anti-Gender Politics as they impact LGBTQ+ Communities
10 LGBTQ+ engagement with the UN Security Council

Part 3: Practice
9 Crisis Simulation: Securing LGBTQ+ people in Humanitarian Emergencies (led by Location Safety)
10 Future Directions in LGBTQ+ Rights & Essay Workshop

Identify the actors and influences that shape international LGBTQ+ human rights global policy making

Evaluate texts, ideas, and authors’ arguments in relation to each other

Evaluate the trajectory of LGBTQ+ politics and their impact on peace and security

Critically assess the security challenges facing queer communities globally 
 

Synthesise information, evaluation of competing explanations

Explain how queer and feminist theories relate to peace and security

Critically interpret and evaluate challenging texts and complex arguments.

Research Skills for Use of library, electronic and online resources

Capacity to carry out independent and teamwork

Time management skill with capacity to meet deadlines

Communicate policy recommendations that draw on key facts and concepts from research on policy analysis in writing (policy briefs) and orally (in policy presentations).

Collaboration and work constructively, appreciation of diverse viewpoints.

Capacity to analyse critically in persuasive writing
 

Key Concept Reflection (1400 words) 35%

Policy Brief (2600 words) 65%

15 working days from submission.
Students will receive written qualitative feedback and a numerical grade.

Enloe, C. (2014) Bananas, Beaches, and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics. 2nd edn. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Puar, J. K. (2007) Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times. Durham: Duke University Press.

Hagen, J, Ritholtz, S, Delatolla, A. (2024) Queer Conflict Research: New Approaches to the Study of Political Violence. London: Bristol University Press.

Amar, P. (2013) The Security Archipelago: Human-Security States, Sexuality Politics, and the End of Neoliberalism. Durham: Duke University Press.

Cohn, C. (ed.) (2013) Women and Wars: Contested Histories, Uncertain Futures. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Bosia, M. J., McEvoy, S. M. and Rahman, M. (eds.) (2020) The Oxford Handbook of Global LGBT and Sexual Diversity Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Chávez, K. R. (2013) Queer Migration Politics: Activist Rhetoric and Coalitional Possibilities. Champaign: University of Illinois Press.

Currier, A. (2012) Out in Africa: LGBT Organizing in Namibia and South Africa. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). (2016) Discussion Paper on LGBT Inclusion and Development. New York: UNDP.

The Yogyakarta Principles. (2007) Principles on the Application of International Human Rights Law in Relation to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. Available at: www.yogyakartaprinciples.org . 

LGBT Lives in Conflict and Crisis, OutRight International. Available at: https://outrightinternational.org/sites/default/files/2023-02/LGBTQLivesConflictCrisis_0.pdf. 

Hagen, J. J. (2016) ‘Queering Women, Peace and Security,’ International Affairs, 92(2), pp. 313–332.

Ritholtz, S., Serrano-Amaya, J.F., Hagen, J.J., & Judge, M. (2023). Under construction: Towards a theory and praxis of queer peacebuilding. Journal of Social Studies, 1 (83), 3 22. https://doi.org/10.7440/res83.2023.01