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Kristen McNutt, Ph.D. is a 2026 graduate of the PhD Program in Leadership and Change at Antioch University.

kristen mcnutt committee

Kristen McNutt at her Dissertation Defense.

From L-R: Dr. Chris Voparil, Committee Member, Dr. Daniel Ogbaharya, Committee Chair, Dr. Woden Teachout, Committee Member.

Dissertation Committee

  • Daniel Ogbaharya, PhD, Committee Chair
  • Woden Teachout, PhD, Committee Member
  • Chris Voparil, PhD, Committee Member

Keywords

governance feminism, international conflict feminism, decolonial feminism, coloniality, women, peace & security, liberal peace, postconflict peacebuilding, gender-based violence, quotidian, structural violence, decolonial methods, participatory methods, Liberia

Document Type

Dissertation

Publication Date

2026

Abstract

Focusing on Liberia, this study investigates the efficacy of governance feminism (GF) and international conflict feminism (ICF) in postconflict liberal peacebuilding, specifically analyzing United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 and the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda to reveal critical gaps between policy narratives and the lived realities of Liberian women. Grounded in decolonial feminism and the coloniality of gender and peace frameworks, the research integrates ideographic narrative analysis of UN Women and Liberian government policy reports, a day-in-the-life study with 13 Liberian women, and surveys and interviews with multilevel actors across international organizations, government, and grassroots organizations, guided by a dialogical epistemology approach. Findings reveal a homogeneous feminist master narrative that simplifies and racializes women's experiences by framing them primarily as victims of patriarchy and gender-based violence (GBV), hindering accurate needs identification; in contrast, the day-in-the-life study demonstrates that Liberian women's primary concerns center on food security, education, and economic stability. The research introduces two original concepts—structural-quotidian gender-based violence (SQGBV), which captures systemic inequalities embedded in everyday struggles, and decolonial-quotidian resilience, which reframes women's daily navigation of those inequalities as an active, agential form of resistance—and identifies epistemic injustice in top-down processes that exclude women’s voices and expertise. Therefore, the critical analysis of GF and ICF within liberal peace frameworks demonstrates limited efficacy when divorced from women's lived experiences, pointing to the urgent need to integrate women’s voices into policymaking, expand decolonial epistemology in peacebuilding practice, and shift away from deficit-based narratives toward recognizing women as agential subjects and experts in their own lives. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohiolink.edu).

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kristen mcnutt

Kristen McNutt

ORCID Id:  #0009-0002-2402-5758

Dr. Kristen N. McNutt earned her Ph.D. in Leadership and Change with a concentration in Public Policy and Change and a Certificate in Women's and Gender Studies from Antioch University. She is a scholar-practitioner focused on feminist praxis who critically examines feminist engagements in violence prevention and advocacy across national and international contexts. Her work consistently advocates for centering women's voices and local knowledge systems in policymaking and promoting more inclusive, equitable peacebuilding and violence prevention practices.

Through her master’s and doctoral fieldwork in Liberia, Dr. McNutt advocates for centering subaltern and women's voices in policymaking, engaging decolonial epistemologies and feminisms, and promoting more inclusive, equitable peacebuilding and violence prevention practices. Her dissertation, “The Efficacy of International Conflict Feminism in Postconflict Peacebuilding: Learning from the Lived Experiences of Liberian Women Through a Decolonial Lens,” advocates a quotidian turn in feminist peacebuilding scholarship that moves beyond sensationalized, episodic depictions of gender-based violence toward women's experiences of structural-quotidian violence. Through this lens, she critically examines the efficacy of international feminist policy frameworks in postconflict contexts, with particular attention to the lived experiences of women in Liberia and postconflict societies and the gaps between global policy narratives and local realities.

Throughout her career, Dr. McNutt has demonstrated leadership in academic service, editorial work, and her community. She has fifteen years of experience working in domestic violence shelters in California, Iowa, Ohio, and Kentucky. She served as Editor of Penumbra: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Critical and Creative Inquiry, and has presented her research at national and international conferences. She received the Outstanding Paper on Gender Award from the University of Northern Iowa, where she earned a Master of Arts in Women's & Gender Studies with a Graduate Certificate in Global Health and Humanitarian Assistance.

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