This volume offers a nuanced understanding of female agency in political violence by reviewing and analyzing the political construction of motherhood as a form of social agency against political violence committed by both state and non-state actors in different parts of the world. While the international relations discipline has traditionally viewed the relationship between women and violent actors as an exploitative one, this book demonstrates that taking maternal bodies seriously creates important intellectual space to examine the types and kinds of violence the discipline of IR takes seriously and the types and kinds of resistance practiced by mothers but often overlooked (at least by male/mainstream IR). Focusing on motherhood as an agency of change, this volume will appeal to scholars in the field of gender and international security, think tanks working on political and security affairs, social activists, policymakers, an interested public audience, as well as undergraduate and postgraduate students undertaking study or research associated with gender and political violence.

Prof. Dr. Deniz Ülke Arboan is currently serving as the Dean of Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, at Üsküdar University, Istanbul. She is also a senior fellow at the Centre for the Resolution of Intractable Conflict (CRIC), Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford. Prof. Dr. Arboan is also a fellow of the World Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has published a number of articles nationally and internationally, as well as 11 books.

Dr. Hamoon Khelghat-Doost is an Assistant Professor of International Relations at the University of Lincoln, United Kingdom. He holds a PhD in Political Science from the National University of Singapore (NUS). His main fields of interest include gender, non-state armed groups, political violence, international security, terrorism, and sustainable development, with a special focus on the Middle East, North Africa, and Southeast Asia. In addition to articles published in various peer reviewed journals, and several book chapters, he is the author of the book The Strategic Logic of Women in Jihadi Organizations: From Operation to State Building (Springer, 2021). 

An Introduction on Constructing Motherhood Identity against Political Violence: Beyond Crying Mothers.- Motherhood, Agency, and Violence: The Personal Is Political.- Mothers will Stop at Nothing: The Responses of Mothers of Terrorists.- Grieving Mothers Who Nurture Sustainable Peace and Womens Political Agency in Argentina.- Empowering or Entrapping in Indigenous Patriarchy? Political Motherhood in Indias Northeast Conflict Zones.- Motherhood and the Combatant Role: A Case Study of Women Politically-Motivated Prisoners in The Context of Violent Conflict.- Motherhood in Iraq: Between the Matrix of Domination and the Matrix of Agency.- Identity, Trauma, and Resistance: The Lived Experience of Palestinian Motherhood in the West Bank.- In the Shadow of Genocide: Mothers of Srebrenica and New Social Power.- Womens Peace Activism and The Construction of Motherhood in North Macedonia.- The Psychopolitics of Motherhood and Political Violence: The Case of the Waiting Mothers in Turkey.