Sara E. Davies

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at Griffith University

In China, the escalating repression of gender and sexual diversity has given rise to ‘queer necropolitics’. ‘Queer necropolitics’ – a concept we build on – refers to the hegemonic ability to determine who is allowed to suffer, survive, or thrive. We examine China’s sustained re-enforcement of traditional gender norms, which has rendered queer commu...

Specialized agencies such as the World Health Organization (WHO) emphasize the importance of impartiality and independence to ensure state compliance and buy-in to their institutional mandate. For functionalists, the boundary distinction between scientific expertise and politics is useful for interest-minded states and institutions that want to pro...

Hidden Wars documents the gendered political violence that is frequently neglected or ignored in conventional analysis of war and conflict, affecting how we understand conflict and which violence we prioritize with implications for postwar peace. Specifically, the book-length study examines the relationship between reports of sexual and gender-base...

Hidden Wars documents the gendered political violence that is frequently neglected or ignored in conventional analysis of war and conflict, affecting how we understand conflict and which violence we prioritize with implications for postwar peace. Specifically, the book-length study examines the relationship between reports of sexual and gender-base...

Hidden Wars documents the gendered political violence that is frequently neglected or ignored in conventional analysis of war and conflict, affecting how we understand conflict and which violence we prioritize with implications for postwar peace. Specifically, the book-length study examines the relationship between reports of sexual and gender-base...

Hidden Wars documents the gendered political violence that is frequently neglected or ignored in conventional analysis of war and conflict, affecting how we understand conflict and which violence we prioritize with implications for postwar peace. Specifically, the book-length study examines the relationship between reports of sexual and gender-base...

Hidden Wars documents the gendered political violence that is frequently neglected or ignored in conventional analysis of war and conflict, affecting how we understand conflict and which violence we prioritize with implications for postwar peace. Specifically, the book-length study examines the relationship between reports of sexual and gender-base...

Hidden Wars documents the gendered political violence that is frequently neglected or ignored in conventional analysis of war and conflict, affecting how we understand conflict and which violence we prioritize with implications for postwar peace. Specifically, the book-length study examines the relationship between reports of sexual and gender-base...

Hidden Wars documents the gendered political violence that is frequently neglected or ignored in conventional analysis of war and conflict, affecting how we understand conflict and which violence we prioritize with implications for postwar peace. Specifically, the book-length study examines the relationship between reports of sexual and gender-base...

Hidden Wars documents the gendered political violence that is frequently neglected or ignored in conventional analysis of war and conflict, affecting how we understand conflict and which violence we prioritize with implications for postwar peace. Specifically, the book-length study examines the relationship between reports of sexual and gender-base...

Hidden Wars documents the gendered political violence that is frequently neglected or ignored in conventional analysis of war and conflict, affecting how we understand conflict and which violence we prioritize with implications for postwar peace. Specifically, the book-length study examines the relationship between reports of sexual and gender-base...

Introduction Social stigma associated with Covid-19 infection has been reported around the world. This paper investigates the level of self-reported perceived stigma among people infected with COVID-19 in Shanghai, China, in the third year of the pandemic to determine changes in perceived stigma and individual level variables associated with percei...

This chapter describes the increasingly prominent representation of health as a security issue. It begins by presenting the ‘origin’ story of health security that has led to the contemporary practices we see today in the WHO and UN Security Council. The chapter then looks at the different approaches to health security—namely, human security and nat...

The World Health Organization (WHO) is tasked with the 'attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health', yet, it is widely struggling to meet this mandate, and COVID-19 has revealed significant limitations of the organisation. Despite clear guidance provided by the institution as to how best to respond to the pathogen, many gover...

Introduction Social stigma associated with Covid-19 infection has been reported around the world. This paper investigates the level of self-reported perceived stigma among people infected with COVID-19 in Shanghai, China, in the third year of the pandemic to determine changes in perceived stigma and individual level variables associated with percei...

Pandemic preparedness and COVID-19 response indicators focus on public health outcomes (such as infections, case fatalities, and vaccination rates), health system capacity, and/or the effects of the pandemic on the economy, yet this avoids more political questions regarding how responses were mobilized. Pandemic preparedness country rankings have b...

The gendered impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia, beyond infection and fatality rates, can be seen across a range of broader social and economic issues including care overload, domestic violence, unemployment and job loss, and housing insecurity. On the whole, government public policy in response to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic ha...

Climate change disproportionately impacts women, particularly those who are already restricted by gender inequality. Climate related events (CRE), such as extreme weather events, droughts, rising sea levels, leave millions vulnerable. Increasingly, the sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) of women are negatively impacted during and post...

What does the international response to the COVID-19 pandemic tell us about the state of international health cooperation and its future? The predominant narrative that international cooperation ‘failed’ in response to COVID-19 may be understood from two competing points of view: first, that there was indeed a ‘failure’ in international cooperation...

Pandemics have quickly become one of the most important subjects of the twenty-first century. This edited volume provides a comparative analysis of the ways in which pandemics are theorized and studied across several disciplines. The book has three objectives: first, to explore the growing diversity of theories and paradigms developed to study pand...

Social media can be both a source of information and misinformation during health emergencies. During the COVID-19 pandemic, social media became a ubiquitous tool for people to communicate and represents a rich source of data researchers can use to analyse users’ experiences, knowledge and sentiments. Research on social media posts during COVID-19...

The Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda and women's participation in peace processes are strongly supported by states. Yet financing to support the implementation of WPS has lagged behind overt international commitments to the agenda. WPS scholars and practitioners have highlighted the funding shortfalls for enabling WPS implementation and conti...

Background During the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, states were called upon by the World Health Organization to introduce and prioritise the collection of sex-disaggregated data. The collection of sex-disaggregated data on COVID-19 testing, infection rates, hospital admissions, and deaths, when available, has informed our understanding of the bi...

Evidence shows that infectious disease outbreaks are not gender-neutral, meaning that women, men, and gender minorities are differentially affected. This evidence affirms the need to better incorporate a gender lens into infectious disease outbreaks. Despite this evidence, there has been a historic neglect of gender-based analysis in health, includ...

COVID-19 has disrupted social, economic and political life across the Asia Pacific region, with particularly deleterious impacts on women. Rather than equitably affecting all, COVID-19 has brought about a “patriarchal reset”, exacerbating women’s health and care labour burdens and heightening the physical violence against women and other threats to...

In 2019, the United Nations (UN) Security Council adopted Resolution 2467. The resolution was to encourage the international system to promote a survivor-centered response to conflict-related sexual violence. The role of local women-led civil society organizations has been identified as the crucial “first-response” mechanism to institute survivor-c...

During health emergencies, neglect of gender experiences and needs can compromise the outbreak response. Ebola in West Africa and Zika in Latin America had gendered effects that were evident during the crises, yet governments and international organizations failed to prioritize a gender-inclusive response. There is the same risk that gender-inclusi...

Gender norms, roles and relations differentially affect women, men, and non-binary individuals’ vulnerability to disease. Outbreak response measures also have immediate and long-term gendered effects. However, gender-based analysis of outbreaks and responses is limited by lack of data and little integration of feminist analysis within global health...

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic poses particular challenges for migrant workers around the world. This study explores the unique experiences of foreign domestic workers (FDWs) in Hong Kong, and how COVID-19 impacted their health and economic wellbeing. Interviews with FDWs (n = 15) and key informants (n = 3) were conducted between...

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic poses particular challenges for migrant workers around the world. This study explores the unique experiences of foreign domestic workers (FDWs) in Hong Kong, and how COVID-19 impacted their health and economic wellbeing. Interviews with FDWs (n = 15) and key informants (n = 3) were conducted between...

The COVID-19 pandemic affects all countries, but how governments respond is dictated by politics. Amid this, the World Health Organization (WHO) has tried to coordinate advice to states and offer ongoing management of the outbreak. Given the political drivers of COVID-19, we argue this is an important moment to advance International Relations knowl...

COVID-19 has been declared a public health emergency of international concern and a global pandemic by the World Health Organization. This global threat to health security underscores the urgent need to accelerate progress on achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3 and the need to massively scale up international cooperation to deliver on SD...

The social and economic impacts of COVID-19 fall harder on women than on men. Governments need to gather data and target policy to keep all citizens equally safe, sheltered and secure. The social and economic impacts of COVID-19 fall harder on women than on men. Governments need to gather data and target policy to keep all citizens equally safe, sh...

Failure to access reproductive health care is a threat to the security of women around the world. This article offers three propositions to recognize reproductive health as a matter of international peace and security. The first is to recognize current processes of advancement and backlash politics as a silent security dilemma that undermines right...

In 2015, the Myanmar Government, the Myanmar Tatmadaw (military) and eight ethnic armed organisations ( eao s) signed the 2015 National Ceasefire Agreement ( nca ). In 2019, this agreement was signed by three more eao s, and there have been four annual conferences (Union Peace Panglong Conference 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019). The ceasefire arrangements,...

Artificial intelligence (AI) is reaching into every aspect of global health. In this essay, I examine one example of AI's potential contributions and limitations in global health: the prediction, treatment, and containment of a global influenza outbreak. The potential advantages are clear. AI can aid global influenza surveillance platforms by impro...

The Oxford Handbook on Women, Peace, and Security examines the significant and evolving international Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda, which scholars and practitioners have together contributed to advancing over almost two decades. Fifteen years since the passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), the WPS agenda has...

In 2017, the Australian Government announced the creation of the Indo-Pacific Centre for Regional Health Security. In the same year, the Australian government investment in gender equality and empowerment in overseas development assistance reached the highest percentage ever recorded in Australian aid history. However, the health sector (excluding...

The United States presidential election of Donald Trump in 2016 was observed by global health commentators as posing dire consequences for the progress made in global health outcomes, governance, and financing. This article shares these concerns, however, we present a more nuanced picture of the global health governance progress narrative pre-Trump...

In a world of fast-paced, globalised travel and trade, early detection of communicable disease outbreaks has become ever more important to prevent the rapid spread of disease. To facilitate surveillance and reporting, detection and communication must be as fast paced as the movement of the outbreak. This sense of urgency has prompted a pivot to tec...

The Women, Peace, and Security agenda (WPS) stands at a juncture with significant potential to prevent conflicts, protect human rights, and promote recovery from conflict but inadequate progress and institutional resistance to meeting the commitments enshrined in UNSCR 1325. The chapter builds on feminist constructivist theories of normative change...

Reparative measures for conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) attend to the practical needs of victims while also addressing the long-term structural conditions that led to the violence and often endure after conflict. Over the last decade, transitional justice has sought to address high levels of impunity for SGBV, while also ad...

The international organization responsible for international coordinated response to disease outbreaks-the World Health Organization (WHO)-was given permission to receive reports from informants other than the state in revisions to the International Health Regulations (IHR) in 2005. However, the organization struggles to protect its corresponding r...

Theories of international norm diffusion rely on accounts of entrepreneurial action almost exclusively identified as normative non-state actors who persuade powerful states to change their behaviour. We argue that powerful state agents can (also) be moral norm entrepreneurs and explicate the foreign policy acts that make them significant agents of...

The year 2015 was a significant anniversary for global health: 15 years since the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals and the creation of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, followed two years later by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria. 2015 was also the 10-year anniversary of the adoption of the International He...

For the last two decades, a recurring strategy employed by health professionals, scientists, and diplomats has been to play the ‘health security card’ to achieve particular trade, diplomatic, strategic, and development goals. The presumption has been that the securitisation of health will harness global political leadership and resources. This marr...

In this article we explore the relationship between pre-existing patterns of gender inequality and the occurrence of widespread and systematic sexual and gender based violence (SGBV). We ask three questions: What do we know about the status of gender inequality in high-risk situations prior to the outbreak of atrocities (which include SGBV)? What c...

Scholars, states and international organizations have begun to systematically count, document and compare sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in conflict-affected countries. Qualitative and quantitative studies point to a “tip of the iceberg” phenomenon, where there is a high prevalence but low level of actual reporting of SGBV. We investigate...

Women (and children) are more likely to remain confined to internally displaced and refugee camps, close to the conflict site. Those who risk voyage out of these conditions are more likely to die (than men) attempting to cross a border. Similar to men, there are multifarious reasons that lead to women attempting this dangerous journey. However, the...

Globally gender remains a key factor in differing health outcomes for men and women. This article analyses the particular relevance of gender for debates about global health and the role for international human rights law in supporting improved health outcomes during public health emergencies. Looking specifically at the recent Ebola and Zika outbr...

Most studies of the gendered impact of conflict focus on sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) atrocities committed in high-intensity conflict environments. In contrast, this article focuses on the patterns of SGBV in Mindanao, Philippines – an environment of protracted low-intensity conflict within a fragile state. We examine the current Mindana...

The UN Security Council meeting on 18 September 2014 represented a major turning-point in the international response to the Ebola outbreak then underway in West Africa. However, in the light of widespread criticism over the tardiness of the international response, it can be argued that the UN, and particularly the Security Council, failed to make b...

Politics in the Corridor of Dying: AIDS Activism and Global Health Governance. By Chan Jennifer . Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015. 344p. $39.95. - Volume 14 Issue 1 - Sara E. Davies

Over the past decade, significant global attention has been paid to the issue of ‘widespread and systematic’ sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV). To contribute to the prevention of SGBV, researchers have examined the relationship between the presence of armed conflict and the causes of SGBV. Much of this causal literature has focused on the ind...

Since the 1998 Rome Statute recognised widespread and systematic acts of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) as an act of genocide, a war crime and crime against humanity, the last decade has seen historic recognition that egregious acts of sexual violence merit international political and legal attention (UN General Assembly, 1998). Notably, t...

Women, Peace and Security (WPS) scholars and practitioners have expressed reservations about the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) principle because of its popular use as a synonym for armed humanitarian intervention. On the other hand, R2P’s early failure to engage with and advance WPS efforts such as United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutio...

In the age of air travel and globalized trade, pathogens that once took months or even years to spread beyond their regions of origin can now circumnavigate the globe in a matter of hours. Amid growing concerns about such epidemics as Ebola, SARS, MERS, and H1N1, disease diplomacy has emerged as a key foreign and security policy concern as countrie...

This article discusses the emergence and maturing of Global Health as a sub-discipline within International Relations. It directly addresses three questions. First, it discusses how International Relations? scholarship can deepen our understanding of global health. Second, it asks what the study of global health can tell scholars of International R...

Over the past decade, there have been increased attempts to understand the contributing factors to the relationship between healthy populations (that is, populations that have long life expectancy from birth), the prevention of conflict, and governance regimes that enable to survive and thrive. These studies have been largely informed by longitudin...