ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the concept and typologies of “the war economy” from a feminist perspective. It puts forward a theoretical framework for investigating and explicating the war economy as a manifestation of temporal, spatial, and scalar gendered circuits of violence and capital that are produced and reproduced both inside and outside of recognised war/conflict zones. The analytical utility of the theory of gendered circuits is illustrated through its application to contemporary situations where conflict and crises of social reproduction collide. We observe civilian deaths and injuries as well as mass displacement and migration from war zones funnelled into low-cost labour markets and global care chains, various forms of lucrative sexual and gendered violence and exploitation including human trafficking and slavery, and the destruction of social and health infrastructure as well as the human capacity for social reproduction. These human processes are constitutive of the war economy. This chapter highlights the interconnected nature of war economies with and across global North and South regions and situations of militarisation, conflict and negative peace. It connects the scholarship on global political economy and social reproduction with that on war and gendered violence.
