GI413 Half Unit
Gender, Race and Militarisation
This information is for the 2025/26 session.
Course Convenor
Dr Hakki Sandal-wilson
Availability
This course is available on the MPhil/PhD in Gender, MSc in Gender, MSc in Gender (Research), MSc in Gender (Rights and Human Rights), MSc in Gender (Sexuality), MSc in Gender, Development and Globalisation, MSc in Gender, Media and Culture, MSc in Gender, Peace and Security, MSc in Gender, Policy and Inequalities, MSc in Human Rights, MSc in Human Rights and Politics, MSc in International Development and Humanitarian Emergencies and MSc in Political Science (Conflict Studies and Comparative Politics). This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit. This course uses controlled access as part of the course selection process.
Students should apply by 10am UK time on Friday 26 September 2025. Offers will be made after 10am on this date and will continue until all places are filled.
Priority is given to those for whom the course is semi-core (if applicable), then home department students and then to those who have the course listed in their programme regulations who apply in the first 24-hours (by 10:00am, Friday 26 September 2025), space permitting. Please note the timing of your request within the first 24-hours will not impact chances of being accepted onto the course. Requests received after this timeframe, or outside option requests, will be allocated randomly if space remains.
Please do not email the Course Convenor with personal expressions of interest as these are not required and do not influence who is offered a place. Contact gender@lse.ac.uk with any queries.
Course content
This course will provide students with a critical introduction to militarisation and its gendered and racialised basis and effects. Students will be introduced to theories of militarisation and martial politics; militarised masculinities and femininities; different geopolitical experiences of violence and war; 'diversity' issues within a variety of national militaries; racialised representations of gender and terror; the global colour-line and gendered division of labour in peacekeeping; and the global politics of peace and anti-militarism activities.
Teaching
15 hours of seminars and 15 hours of lectures in the Winter Term.
This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Winter Term.
Formative assessment
Written exercise in the WT.
Indicative reading
• Cockburn, C. (2012) Anti-militarism: political and gender dynamics of peace movements, Palgrave.
• Sjoberg, L., and S. Via, eds. (2010) Gender, war, and militarism: Feminist perspectives. New York: Praeger Security International
• Zillah Eisenstein. (2007). Sexual Decoys: Gender, Race, and War in Imperial Democracy. London, UK: Zed Books.
• Cynthia Enloe. (2000). Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women's Lives. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
• Robin Riley and Naeem Inayatullah. (2006). Interrogating Imperialism: Conversations on Gender, Race, and War. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
Assessment
Project (100%, 3000 words)
Key facts
Department: Gender Studies
Course Study Period: Winter Term
Unit value: Half unit
FHEQ Level: Level 7
CEFR Level: Null
Total students 2024/25: 57
Average class size 2024/25: 14
Controlled access 2024/25: YesCourse selection videos
Some departments have produced short videos to introduce their courses. Please refer to the course selection videos index page for further information.
Personal development skills
- Leadership
- Self-management
- Team working
- Problem solving
- Application of information skills
- Communication