Cynthia Cockburn (1934 – 12 September 2019) was a British academic, feminist, and peace activist.

Career

Cockburn was a researcher in the fields of gender, war and peace-making, labour processes and trade unionism, and refugees. She was active in the international women's peace movement. Cockburn was a visiting professor in the Department of Sociology at

City University London City, University of London, is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, and a member institution of the federal University of London. It was founded in 1894 as the Northampton Institute, and became a university when The City Univ ...

and honorary professor in the Centre for the Study of Women and Gender at the

University of Warwick The University of Warwick ( ; abbreviated as ''Warw.'' in post-nominal letters) is a public research university on the outskirts of Coventry between the West Midlands (county), West Midlands and Warwickshire, England. The university was founded i ...

. An active

antimilitarist Antimilitarism (also spelt anti-militarism) is a doctrine that opposes war, relying heavily on a critical theory of imperialism and was an explicit goal of the First and Second International. Whereas pacifism is the doctrine that disputes (especi ...

, she was involved in a number of peace and

anti-war An anti-war movement (also ''antiwar'') is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term anti-war can also refer to pa ...

organisations. In 1981, she was part of a group of women who founded Women Against War in the Gulf, and in response to the Bosnian Yugoslav wars, the group evolved to become Women Against War Crime. From 1993, they began calling the group

Women in Black Women in Black ( he, נשים בשחור, ''Nashim BeShahor'') is a women's anti-war movement with an estimated 10,000 activists around the world. The first group was formed by Israeli women in Jerusalem in 1988, following the outbreak of the Fi ...

in support of other international

peace movement A peace movement is a social movement which seeks to achieve ideals, such as the ending of a particular war (or wars) or minimizing inter-human violence in a particular place or situation. They are often linked to the goal of achieving world peac ...

efforts, specifically those taking place in Israel, Italy, and Yugoslavia. She was also involved with Women Against Fundamentalism, the European Forum of Socialist Feminists, and was a member of the Women's International League for Peace & Freedom. As both an academic and activist, Cockburn presented talks at a number of conferences. In May 2017, she was honoured at the Gender and Peace Conference in

Istanbul Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...

, and presented the keynote address. Cockburn was selected to be featured in the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

project, 'Sisterhood and After', an oral history archive of feminists active in the 1970–1980s. On 14 October 2017, the journal ''

Feminist Review ''Feminist Review'' is a triannual peer-reviewed academic journal with a focus on exploring gender in its multiple forms and interrelationships. The journal was established in 1979. It is published by SAGE Publishing and is edited by a collective. ...

'' celebrated Cockburn's contribution to feminist scholarship by co-hosting an event with the

SOAS SOAS University of London (; the School of Oriental and African Studies) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury are ...

Centre for Gender Studies and provided free access to a number of her published articles. Cockburn was widely published in academic journals, including in ''

,'' '' Gender & Development,' Journal of Classical Sociology'', '' Peace in Process.'' She also wrote for ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', '' Red Pepper'', ''

Peace News ''Peace News'' (''PN'') is a pacifist magazine first published on 6 June 1936 to serve the peace movement in the United Kingdom. From later in 1936 to April 1961 it was the official paper of the Peace Pledge Union (PPU), and from 1990 to 2004 w ...

'', IndyMedia UK, and

OpenDemocracy openDemocracy is an independent media platform and news website based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 2001, openDemocracy states that through reporting and analysis of social and political issues, they seek to "challenge power and encourage de ...

Publications

Cockburn published a number of academic books including: * ''The Local State: Management of Cities and People'' (1977, Pluto Press) * ''In and Against the State'' (1981, Pluto Press) * ''Brothers: Male Dominance and Technical Change'' (1983, Pluto Press) * ''Machinery of Dominance: Women, Men and Technical Know-how'' (1985, Pluto Press) * ''Two-Track Training: Sex Inequalities and the Youth Training Scheme'' (1987, Macmillan) * ''In the Way of Women: Men's Resistance to Sex Equality in Organizations'' (1991, Macmillan) * ''Gender and Technology in the Making'' (1993, Sage Publications, with Susan Ormrod) * ''Bringing Technology Home: Gender and Technology in a Changing Europe'' (1994, Oxford University Press, with Ruza Furst-Dilic) * ''Women in the Europeanizing of Industrial Relations: A Study in Five Member States'' (1994, European Commission, with Maria Carmen Alemany Gomez, Myriam Bergamaschi, Hildegard Maria Nickel, and Chantal Rogerat) * ''The Space Between Us: Negotiating Gender and National Identities in Conflict'' (1998, Zed Books) * ''The Postwar Moment: Militaries, Masculinities and International Peacekeeping'' (2002, Lawrence and Wishar, with Dubravka Zarkov) * ''The Line: Women, Partition and the Gender Order in Cyprus'' (2004, Zed Books) * ''From Where We Stand: War, Women’s Activism and Feminist Analysis'' (2007, Zed Books) * ''Antimilitarism: Political and Gender Dynamics of Peace Movements'' (2012, Palgrave Macmillan) * ''Looking to London: Stories of War, Escape and Asylum'' (2017, Pluto Press) Publications by Cockburn have been translated into German, Russian, Turkish, Japanese, Georgian, Bosnian, Serbo-Croat, Bulgarian, Greek, Spanish, Korean, and Catalan.

References

External links

Personal website

Women in Black - London
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cockburn, Cynthia 1934 births 2019 deaths Academics of the University of Warwick Academics of City, University of London British anti-war activists British feminist writers British women's rights activists

Career

Publications

References

Further reading

External links