Dr Julia Zulver wins ISA Peace Studies Best Female Scholar Book Award

Dr Julia Zulver (MPhil Latin American Studies, 2012; DPhil Sociology, 2018), has been awarded the International Studies Association (ISA) Peace Studies Best Female Scholar Award, for the book based on her MPhil and DPhil theses.

Her book, High-Risk Feminism, published by Rutgers University Press in 2022 is available for purchase here. The book documents the experiences of grassroots women’s organisations that united to demand gender justice during and in the aftermath of Colombia’s armed conflict. In doing so, it illustrates a little-studied phenomenon: women whose experiences with violence catalyze them to mobilise and resist as feminists, even in the face of grave danger. Despite a well-established tradition of studying women in war, the focus tends to be on their roles as mothers or carers, as peacemakers, or sometimes as revolutionaries.

The ISA committee said that Julia "paints an impressive picture of feminist agency in violent contexts. The book is theoretically innovative and based on a compelling methodology and impressive empirics. While it focuses on Colombia, its insights are relevant for a wide range of contexts, such as Afghanistan, Kenya, or the Philippines. Other peace scholars will surely take up the original framework that Julia Zulver proposes in order to advance our knowledge on feminist mobilisation."

I am thrilled that my book has won the ISA Peace Studies Section’s Best Female Scholar Book Award. I hope that this endorsement serves to further amplify the voices of those women who have dedicated their lives to building a more gender-just future amidst Colombia’s ongoing armed conflict.  - Dr Julia Zulver

Watch a recording of Julia's book launch presentation with University College London Institute of the Americas:

Video recorded on 12 May 2022. Comments by Professor Maxine Molyneux.

Dr Julia Zulver is a political sociologist whose work focuses on women’s mobilisation in violent and high-risk contexts, mainly in Latin America. Her approach to research is interdisciplinary, drawing on social movement studies, gender studies, and peace and conflict studies.

She is Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow at the Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas (UNAM, Mexico) and the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies. Her three-year research project is entitled “High-Risk Leadership in Latin America: Women’s Pursuit of Gender Justice in Violent Contexts.” In her research Julia aims to further document and explain women’s high-risk mobilisation in the region, particularly in Mexico & El Salvador and comparatively study women’s leadership in high-risk social movements across Latin America.