FLEECOIN - BOKO HARAM COUNTERINSURGENCY: FLEEING MEN AND BOYS (Onyinyechukwu Durueke) - *UKRI Guarantee Fund*

The FLEECOIN project addresses a serious gap in research on counterinsurgency (COIN): the gendered effects that COIN campaigns have on the civilian population, and the strategies employed by men and boys to escape the gender-based violence (GBV) related to COIN. With this innovative focus, and exploring in depth the case study of COIN against Boko Haram (BH) in Nigeria, the project makes two core contributions to knowledge. First, FLEECOIN contributes to emergent scholarship that amplifies the research focus on GBV to include the experiences of men and boys. Secondly, this project deepens and nuances our understanding of the effects of states' COIN campaigns on civilians, and of the coping mechanisms used by vulnerable males in response, especially fleeing. Here, its primary focus is on understanding flight as a response to COIN by civilian men and adolescent boys. The FLEECOIN research is designed as a qualitative case study and will involve fieldwork in Nigeria. The major instrument for primary data collection will be indepth interviews with experts, men and adolescent boys who have fled their communities, soldiers who have taken part in Boko Haram-related COIN operations, and residents of communities from where men and boys fled. Failure to address the suffering of male victims during violent conflicts has profound consequences for the survivor because it excludes them from assistance and support. The research coincides with Horizon Europe work programme cluster 2 Culture, creativity and inclusive society, specifically HORIZON-CL2-2022-TRANSFORMATIONS01-05: Gender and social, economic and cultural empowerment, interested in intersections between gender and other social categories and the cumulative effect of multiple forms of discrimination and disadvantages, and in how gendered power hierarchies lead to systematic GBV.