Women's role in the Basque conflict resolution and reconciliation process. Invisibilised peacebuilding, memory and justice: a feminist, holistic and intersectional reading

Abstract

This thesis critically explores the role of women in the Basque peace process (2005–2020), analysing their participation in armed struggle, civil society, memory practices, and grassroots peacebuilding. It examines how their agency has been made invisible or selectively recognised within dominant state narratives, particularly those shaped by Spanish institutions, that privilege formal actors and reinforce binaries such as victim or perpetrator. Grounded in feminist and intersectional theories of peace, care, and epistemic justice, and informed by Basque feminist scholarship, the study rethinks conflict transformation from the margins. It highlights women’s alternative forms of resistance, collective care, and memory-making, showing how they sustained the social fabric amid violence and reimagined peace from below. Often dismissed as informal or apolitical, these contributions are essential to reconciliation and democratisation. This research is innovative in two respects: first, it centres feminist memory work and relational justice as key to long-term peace, challenging transitional justice frameworks focused on elite negotiations; second, it dismantles binaries such as public/private, formal/informal politics, and perpetrator/victim, showing how women’s agency transcends these categories. The thesis situates women’s contributions within broader human rights and democratic discourses, arguing that sustainable peace cannot be achieved without recognising women’s emotional, social, and political labour.