Dispossession after war: a feminist political economy perspective

“Post war” has been highlighted as an arena in which, under the banner of reconstruction, processes of accumulation by dispossession are often intensified. This conceptual article explores gaps in how “dispossession” is typically defined, to deepen understanding of the complex, gendered modalities that occur in post-war, when the population is already living in the wake of wartime land dispossession. Through an interdisciplinary feminist political economy and conflict studies lens, “dispossession” as a concept is interrogated beyond the original Marxist meaning of separation from the means of production via wholesale agrarian transition. The article argues that, in the long post-war “moment,” gendered dispossession might occur in three interrelated ways, all connected to wartime dispossession. The first is bodily dispossession which occurs through shifting forms of patriarchy. The second is dispossession manifesting within reconfigured social reproductive relations. The third is piecemeal dispossession, through the embedding of other capitalist relations, including lifetime debt. HIGHLIGHTS A feminist approach to dispossession reveals its less visible and its gendered dimensions. Conflict-related dispossession consists of more than mass land expulsion during war. In post-war, dispossession connects to both state and capitalist logics of accumulation. Dispossession can have different modes: it is an embodied process, occurs through social reproduction, and can happen covertly. A feminist re-conceptualization contributes to analyses of violence against women in war and post-war.