What the world needs now: reimagining development, peace and security through critical theories Distinguished Scholar Lecture with Professor Marsha Henry

Professor Marsha Henry's lecture charts the formative influence of international, intersectional and interdisciplinary feminist perspectives in shaping my research across feminist development studies, critical military studies, gender, peace and security, and decolonial feminist methodologies. She will provide a broad overview of her work to argue for reclaiming critical theories in contemporary research practices.

By tracing the evolving theoretical and conceptual currents that have guided her work, currents that interrogate entrenched power relations, illuminate persistent social, political and epistemic inequalities, and imagine pathways for reducing harm and improving the lives of those at the margins, she will demonstrate why returning to, and extending, this critical intellectual labour remains essential for the study of politics, in the broadest sense. Such a return is not merely reflective; it is foundational for advancing knowledge in the fields of gender studies, international relations, and peace and conflict studies, to name a few.

Marsha holds the Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton Chair in Women, Peace, Security and Justice at Queen's Institute for Peace, Security and Justice, and is Professor in the School of HAPP at Queen's University Belfast. Her research is concerned with the gendered and racialised politics of violence; militarisation; global south development; international aid and intervention; and conflict, peace and security and she has published on the challenges of decolonial, intersectional and feminist qualitative approaches, methodologies and fieldwork.

She is the author of several books, the latest of which is The End of Peacekeeping: Gender, Race and the Martial Politics of Intervention (Penn Press, 2024). She has recently completed her term as Associate Editor for Security Dialogue. She has helped to develop a range of courses on gender, peace and security at the GEST Programme at the University of Iceland, UNITAR, Switzerland, and the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeper Training Centre in Ghana.

Marsha has also advised several national governments on women's participation in the armed forces, combatting sexual exploitation and abuse in humanitarian settings, and developing anti-racist and diversity strategies in foreign policy ministries.