Domestic Violence Law, Peacebuilding and The Political Economy Of Violence Against Women

Interventions on gender and violence at the village level in Timor-Leste have had uneven outcomes because a 'local turn' in governance has supported the power of [male-dominated] village leaderships and hybrid approaches (especially de facto legal pluralism). I argue this is not a (western) liberal versus local divide, as theorised in literature on the 'local turn' in peacebuilding. Instead, significant coalitions exist that cross national and international divides to both support and challenge existing unequal gender relations. I suggest rather that uneven results reflect the privileging of cultural and legalistic approaches to addressing gender-based violence over a political economy approach that appreciates the material basis of gender relations, and therefore of gender-based violence against women. The paper explores the tensions in development interventions addressing gender and violence through the 10 year process in Timor Leste to adopt the Law on Domestic Violence and its subsequent implementation at the village level.