Logo: to the web site of the Swedish Defence University

Combat Service Support (CSS) refers to the direct and indirect sustainment services to the soldiers and units (potentially) engaged in combat activities. In the Global North militaries support work is called CSS and considered vital for the armed forces, while support work in ‘irregular’ forces of the Global South is rarely addressed, apart from feminist research. Through intersectional reading, I suggest that this discrepancy can be best explained by gendered and racialised forms of othering where ‘feminine’ care work (the first other) and ‘irregularity’ (the second other) are mutually reinforcing. Drawing on interview data with Oretha, as well as other Liberian CSS specialists, I show the practical implications of this form of (double-)othering in war and its aftermath.

The question “where are the women?” has long guided feminist scholarship, including in Feminist Security Studies. In this chapter, we complicate the question by exploring the notion of woman through adjacent literatures that point out the always contextual nature of womanhood and gender more generally. Drawing on postcolonial, intersectional, and indigenous feminisms, we probe how feminist security narratives can become less narrow and live up to their feminist potential. It is our contention that through a wider discussion of womanhood and gender more generally, we will be able to construct more complete, less exclusionary narratives of security. Our discussion has both theoretical and methodological implications, but also direct relevance for feminist policymaking.