Dr Maria O'Reilly, Senior Lecturer

Dr Maria O'Reilly

Senior Lecturer

Maria O'Reilly is a Senior Lecturer in Politics & International Relations.

Maria's work focuses on the gender politics of war and peace, with a particular focus on the region of the former Yugoslavia. Her research explores how gendered agency emerges in response to war and to post-war peacebuilding interventions. 

Maria's research has examined local and international peacebuilding practices in Bosnia & Herzegovina and their role in promoting gender-just forms of peace. This includes an exploration of post-war justice initiatives and an AHRC-ESRC funded project on female combatants' experiences of Disarmament, Demobilisation, and Reintegration programmes.

Maria joined Leeds Beckett in 2017. She previously held an AHRC Postdoctoral fellowship in the School of Politics and International Relations at Queen Mary, University of London.

Current Teaching

  • Theorising Peace & Conflict
  • Gendering the International
  • Peacebuilding & Conflict Resolution
  • Politics, Ethics and Justice

Research Interests

Maria is currently finalising her research on ‘The Gender Politics of Demilitarisation' project. This project examines the relationship between gender, agency and international security, looking in particular at the case of (post-)conflict Bosnia & Herzegovina. It explores whether contemporary security practices provide 'gender security' in (post)conflict settings, and examines the ways in which gendered agency and resistance emerges in response to peace and security interventions.

Maria is also working with Dr. Laura McLeod (University of Manchester) to develop a feminist analysis of key concepts, methods and approaches used in the field of Critical Peace & Conflict Studies. They recently co-edited a Special Issue of the journal Peacebuilding, on the theme 'Critical Peace & Conflict Studies: Feminist Interventions'.

Dr Maria O'Reilly, Senior Lecturer

Ask Me About

  1. Feminism
  2. Gender
  3. Peace

Selected Outputs

  • O'Reilly M (In press) Gender Justice and Peacebuilding. In: Richmond O; Visoka G ed. The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Peace and Conflict Studies. Palgrave Macmillan Cham, pp. 1-12.

  • O'Reilly MF (2019) From Gendered War to Gendered Peace? Feminist Perspectives on International Intervention in Sites of Conflict. In: Lemay-Hebert N ed. Handbook of Intervention and Statebuilding. Edward Elgar, pp. 303-314.

  • O'Reilly MF (2017) Feminism and the Politics of Difference. In: Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 1-35.

  • O'Reilly MF (2013) Gender and Peacebuilding. In: Mac Ginty R ed. Routledge Handbook of Peacebuilding. Routledge, pp. 57-68.

  • O'Reilly MF; campbell K; demir E (2018) Understanding Conflict-Related Sexual Violence: Analysing the Everyday Experience of Conflict Through Witness Testimonies. In: International Studies Association, 4 April 2018 - 7 April 2018, San Francisco.

  • Campbell K; Demir E; O'Reilly MF (2019) Understanding conflict-related sexual violence and the ‘everyday’ experience of conflict through witness testimonies. Cooperation and Conflict, 54 (2), pp. 254-277.

    https://doi.org/10.1177/0010836719838586

  • McLeod L; O'Reilly MF (2019) Critical peace and conflict studies: feminist interventions. Peacebuilding, 7 (2), pp. 127-145.

    https://doi.org/10.1080/21647259.2019.1588457

  • O'Reilly MF (2016) Peace and Justice through a Feminist Lens: Gender Justice and the Women’s Court for the Former Yugoslavia. Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 10 (3), pp. 419-445.

    https://doi.org/10.1080/17502977.2016.1199482

  • O'Reilly MF (2012) Muscular Interventionism: Gender, Power and Liberal Peacebuilding in Post-Conflict Bosnia-Herzegovina. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 14 (4), pp. 529-548.

    https://doi.org/10.1080/14616742.2012.726096

  • eds. McLeod L; O'Reilly M (2021) Feminist Interventions in Critical Peace and Conflict Studies.

  • Reilly MO (2017) Gendered Agency in War and Peace: Gender Justice and Women's Activism in Post-Conflict Bosnia-Herzegovina. Springer.