Skip to main content.
OSUN
  • Education sub-menuEducation

    With a strong emphasis on student-centered learning, critical literacy, and liberal arts and sciences education, OSUN creates diverse global classrooms of students who learn from each other and collectively develop a culture of dialogue and debate.

    • Teaching
      • Birkbeck Summer School
      • Center for Liberal Arts and Sciences Pedagogy (CLASP)
      • Developing Teaching Professionals
      • Global History Lab
      • Global Teaching Fellowship Program
      • GLOBALED
      • Hannah Arendt Humanities Network
      • Network Collaborative Courses
      • OSUN Courses
    • Threatened Scholars
      Initiative

    • Mobility

    • Certificate Programs
    • Curricula
      • CORUSUS
      • Economic Democracy Initiative
      • Economic Policy Addressing Inequality and Poverty
      • Experimental Humanities Collaborative Network
      • Human Rights Program
      • Liberal Arts and Sciences Collaborative
      • Policy Labs
      • Professional Development Program for University Administrators
      • Public Health and Human Rights
      • Strengthening the Core
      • Transnational Politics
      • Transnational Feminism, Solidarity, and Social Justice
  • Research sub-menuResearch

    OSUN promotes collaboration across its partner institutions, including the codesign of research projects, to explore issues of global and local relevance through socially engaged research, interdisciplinary collaboration, or comparative research.

    • Research Projects
      • The Democracy Institute
      • Economic Democracy Initiative
      • Engaged Scholarship
      • GEOHUB
      • Global Institute of Advanced Study
      • Global Observatory on Academic Freedom
      • Interruptrr
      • Open Society Research Platform
      • Research Creation Initiative
      • Senior Projects
    • Fellowships
      • Chatham House Academy Fellowships
      • Global Scholars Academy
      • Modular Doctoral Program
  • Access sub-menuAccess

    OSUN expands access to higher education by creating new pathways for underserved communities. Academic integration and connected learning bring educational opportunities to students beyond OSUN’s brick-and-mortar campuses.

    • Teacher Education
      • Enhanced Network Teacher Education Capacity
      • Hubs for Connected Learning Initiatives
    • Education Pathways
      • Collaborative for Liberal Education for Adolescents
      • Consortium for the Liberal Arts in Prison
      • English Learner Success in Content Classrooms
      • Hubs for Connected Learning Initiatives
      • Microcollege for Just Community Leadership
      • OLIve
      • Roma Equity in Higher Education
      • The Socrates Project
  • Civic sub-menuCivic Engagement

    With a belief in the public purpose of higher education, civic engagement across OSUN promotes best practices and bold new initiatives to help students, faculty, and institutions realize their full potential as community actors and educators.

    • Student Engagement
      • Global Commons
      • Global Debate Network
      • Global Engagement Fellows
      • Get Engaged Conference
      • Online Arts Workshop
      • Student-Led Initiatives
      • Student Life Initiatives Project (SLIP)
    • Engaged Learning
      • Certificate in Civic Engagement
      • Community Engaged Liberal Arts and Sciences
      • Engaged Scholarship
      • Engaged Senior Projects
      • OSUN Science Shop
      • Solve Climate by 2030
  • News sub-menuNews + Opportunities

    OSUN offers myriad opportunities and events to undergraduate and graduate students, researchers and scholars, and faculty. News and features provide updates on project impacts and the people involved.

    • Newsroom
      • Current News         
      • News Archive
    • Events
      • Current Events
      • Events Archive
    • Opportunities
      • Current Opportunities
      • Student Opportunities
      • Faculty Opportunities
      • Opportunities Archive
  • Resources sub-menuResources

    OSUN faculty and institutions have worked collectively to assemble this dynamic collection of student-centered teaching methodologies and instructional strategies. Whether working online, in person, or in a blended context, establishing a clear and consistent communication plan with students is central to all of these practices.

    • OSUN Resources
      • Academic Technology Guides
      • Blended Learning Toolkit
  • About sub-menuAbout

    OSUN aims to educate students for tomorrow’s global challenges, fostering critical thinking and open intellectual inquiry to strengthen the foundations of open society amid the current authoritarian resurgence.

    • About OSUN
      • Our Vision
      • Who We Are
      • What We Do
      • Member Institutions
      • Themes
      • Annual Report
  • Search
News & Events Menu
  • Newsroom
    • Current News
    • News Archive
  • Events
    • Current Events
    • Events Archive
  • Opportunities
    • Current Opportunities
    • Opportunities Archive

OSUN News

View all news

“Actors of Resistance”: Centering Women’s Agency in Ukraine and Afghanistan Conflicts

By Christina Jones 
OSUN Gender Equity Programming Fellow


The OSUN Gender Equity Working Group recently sponsored a webinar on "Women in Armed Conflict" with Tamara Martsenyuk, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and Sweeta Akbari, Founder and CEO of Afghan Women Scholars (AWS), discussing the respective cases of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.

Coinciding with UN Human Rights Day, the panel was moderated by working group members Elena Kim, Associate Professor of Psychology at Bard College and the American University of Central Asia (AUCA) and Zarlasht Sarmast, Program Coordinator of the OSUN Global Engagement Fellows program. Watch the video here. 

In her introduction, Elena Kim noted that while women and girls face innumerable challenges during military invasion, occupation, and conflict, this discussion would look beyond limiting narratives that cast women and girls as mere victims in the contexts of conflict and war. She said speakers would instead examine the ways women and girls are individuals with agency whose grueling work during times of armed conflict and post-conflict should not be treated as an afterthought to the more visible accounts of suffering.

Tamara Martsenyuk presented her interview-based sociological research on the role of Ukrainian women combating aggression in what she refers to as “Russia’s War.” She spoke of women as both actors with agency and as victims of gender-based violence, acknowledging the coexistence of their vulnerability to abuse in the face of occupation and armed conflict and their power as key players in the brave work of resisting domination–which includes the decolonization of academia.

On the tension between feminism and militarism, Martsenyuk said that “On this occasion of (war in) Ukraine, you could see that feminists, even those who are critical of militarization, do believe that … the Russians’ war crimes have left us with no options… They write that… we as feminists must lobby for defense for Ukraine.”

Sweeta Akbari spoke of the challenges faced by Afghan women scholars–students and academic faculty alike–whose ability to dedicate themselves to academic pursuits has been undermined by the Taliban since long before the “fall of Afghanistan” in 2021. Her analysis applied to both Afghan women scholars and academicians who wish to leave Afghanistan for the sake of their safety and their ability to carry out their work and to those who wish to continue to live and work in the country. Akbari shared her own experiences, including a challenging journey from Afghanistan to Finland, as an academic and as a civilian living under several decades of war in Afghanistan.

“This is the story of every woman in Afghanistan, despite their standing whether or not they had a major part in calling to the international community and asking for their rights,” said Akbari.  Watch the full webinar video here.

The OSUN Gender Equity Group is seeking submissions for online events during March, Women's History Month, that seek to raise the profile of gender-oriented issues and topics. Network community members can learn more and submit events here. 

Post Date: 01-17-2023
Open Society University Network
For more information contact: 
[email protected]