Feminist Christian realism : vulnerability, obligation, and power politics

Date of Acceptance: 11/09/2014While Christianity and feminism may seem at odds with one another, both make normative claims about justice and addressing the needs of those on the margins of power. This paper explores what feminism contributes to Christian realism. The current revival of Niebuhrian Christian realism highlights how much it still has to offer as a theoretical underpinning for policy and governance. However, Christian realism remains wedded to masculinist abstractions and power structures, such as the balance of power, that are ultimately harmful to those on the margins. Thus, this paper uses feminism to argue for a greater acceptance of vulnerability and obligation in Christian realism.PostprintPeer reviewe

Anxiety and the creation of the scapegoated other

This article examines how anxiety saturates the neo-Orientalist driven thesis of new terrorism, especially in how both anxiety and new terrorism are related to the unknown. Of particular importance is the description of al Qaeda as an amorphous and thus unknowable threat by Western academics and the media, which reifies the discursive neo-Orientalist binary of the West versus Islam. Scholars of International Relations are increasingly engaging with emotions and their impact on binary and hierarchical structures. Emotions operate relationally as they are the articulation of affect. The emotions discursively constitute identity and community structures, helping to inform ideas of self and other. The more specific study of anxiety reveals similarities, but anxiety also operates differently from other emotions as it is focused on future potentialities. Thus, terrorism and anxiety are co-constitutive in their conceptual dependency on futurity and uncertainty that sustain the neo-Orientalist binary.PostprintPeer reviewe

The mysterious case of Aafia Siddiqui : Gothic intertextual analysis of neo-Orientalist narratives

When Aafia Siddiqui ‘disappeared’ from her upper-middle class life in Boston in 2003 due to accusations that she was involved in al Qaeda, competing narratives from the US government, media, and her family emerged striving to convince the American public of her guilt or innocence. These narratives were rooted in a gendered form of neo-Orientalism that informed and structured the War on Terror. The narratives, of innocent Soccer Mom, nefarious Lady al Qaeda, and mentally fragile Grey lady, sought to explain how a well-educated woman could possibly be involved with a terrorist organisation. This article uses intertextual analysis to draw parallels between Gothic literature and the Siddiqui narratives. Gothic literature’s dependency upon gendered unease is particularly evident in the Siddiqui narratives, which then reveal the uncertainties within the War on Terror, particularly those related to American exceptionalism.PostprintPeer reviewe

The politics of hope : privilege, despair and political theology

Situated within feminist Christian Realism, this article looks at what political theology is and its relevance to International Relations. Hope is a central theme to political theology, underpinning the necessity to be witness to and to work against oppressive structures. Simply put, hope is the desire to make life better. For Christians, this hope stems from a belief in resurrection of Christ and the faith that such redemption is offered to all of humanity. Hope, however, is not limited to Christianity and, therefore, Christian theology. Thus, taking an intersectional approach, the article looks for similarities in how hope is articulated in three personal narratives: theologian Jürgen Moltmann, UK Muslim advocate Asim Qureshi, and Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors. Across all three personal narratives, the need for hope begins in a place of despair, signalling a need to recognize that hope and privilege are in tension with one another. Feminist Christian Realism acknowledges and embraces this tension, recognizing that hope cannot function if the pain, oppression and harm caused by privilege are erased or minimized.PostprintPeer reviewe

Gender and terrorism

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Female terrorism and militancy

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Profiling terror: gender, strategic logic, and emotion in the study of suicide terrorism

'Robert Papes viel diskutiertes Buch 'Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism' (2005) zeigt deutlich die Selbstverständlichkeit eines vermeintlich geschlechtsneutralen Zugangs zur Analyse von männlichen und weiblichen SelbstmordterroristInnen. Papes Hauptargument ist, dass Selbstmordterrorismus eine durchaus rationale Strategie politischer AkteurInnen sei, der sich in Form von Kampagnen ausschließlich gegen Demokratien richte. Die Studie benennt zwar Männer wie Frauen als rationale politische Individuen bzw. AkteurInnen, betont zugleich aber bei Frauen stark den emotionalen Aspekt der Motivation. In diesem Artikel argumentieren die Verfasser, dass geschlechtsneutrale Studien wie die von Robert A. Pape nur vermeintlich geschlechtsneutral sind und gerade diese Annahme dazu führt, dass soziale und politische Dimensionen von Geschlechterordnungen ebenso wie die Vergeschlechtlichung des Sozialen und Politischen ausgeblendet werden. Darüber hinaus sagen die Verfasser, dass das Modell der Rational Choice Theorie, wie sie bei Pape eindrücklich angewendet wird, die Kluft zwischen den Geschlechtern noch vergrößert, indem 'männlichen' Werten der Vorzug gegenüber 'weiblichen' gegeben wird. Als Alternative schlagen die Verfasser eine dreifache Modifikation des Zugangs zu einer Beforschung von Selbstmordterrorismus vor, die sowohl politische als auch emotionale Motivationen inkludiert: Vergeschlechtlichte Repräsentationen von SelbstmordattentäterInnen verstärken Stereotype über Geschlecht sowie über Selbstmordterrorismus; das Ausblenden der Komplexität von Motivationen bringt die Vielfalt der Variablen, die in die Entscheidung der 'MärtyrerInnen' einfließen, nicht zum Verschwinden; und ein theoretischer Zugang, der das Emotionale in den Vordergrund stellt, könnte die Verengung des Rational Choice Ansatzes ausgleichen. Der Aufsatz schließt mit Belegen für unsere These am Beispiel der tschetschenischen 'Schwarzen Witwen', womit die der Verfasser Vorschläge als explanatorisch wertvoll diskutiert werden.' (Autorenreferat)'Robert Pape's well-received book, 'Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism' (2005), presents what appears to be a gender-neutral study of both male and female suicide terrorists. Pape's main argument is that suicide terrorism is a strategic and rational terror campaign against democracies. While the study argues that male and female suicide terrorists are rational individuals, it depicts women as motivated by emotion. Thus, this article argues that gender-neutral work is rarely gender-neutral and such studies fail to recognize the social and political impact of gender. Furthermore, the authors argue that the rational choice model presented by Pape furthers the gender divide by emphasizing values associated with masculinity over values associated with femininity. As an alternative, the authors propose three propositions to change the study of suicide terrorism to include both political and emotional motivations. They propose that gendered presentations of female suicide bombers reify stereotypical images of gender and of suicide bombers, that silence about the complexity of suicide bombers' motivations does not erase the many variables that go into martyrs' decisions, and that adding emotion to the study of suicide bombing counterbalances the narrowness of the 'strategic actor' model. The essay concludes with evidence from the study of the Chechen 'black widows' that demonstrates the explanatory value of these propositions.' (author's abstract

Anxiety politics : creativity and feminist Christian realism

The aim of this article is to articulate feminist Christian realism and how it differs from Reinhold Niebuhr’s Christian realism. As one of the most influential Christian realists, Niebuhr, with his views on world affairs, continues to influence the discipline of International Relations and politicians. Fundamental to Niebuhr’s thinking is how anxiety over human vulnerability is settled: either through destructive or creative acts. In the light of feminist thought, Niebuhr’s creativity in the face of anxiety needs to be reconsidered as it minimises the role of emotions, particularly love, and the perspective and experiences of individuals. Thus, feminist Christian realism agrees with Christian realism in that power and justice are important considerations, but they need to be seen through a love-informed creative lens. In order to demonstrate how a creatively informed feminist Christian realism differs, the article starts and ends with different approaches to the threat of terrorism, which is a deeply anxious security concern in the 21st century.PostprintPeer reviewe

The ‘duel’ meaning of feminisation in International Relations : the rise of women and the interior logics of declinist literature

‘Feminisation’ in International Relations refers to multiple, and sometimes contradictory, concepts. Much of the time it refers to the incorporation of women into various organisations and institutions, such as women’s participation in militaries or in politics. The decline of violence, or declinist, literature lists it as one of the contributing factors in the decline of violence and associates feminisation with women’s social, political, and economic empowerment. Feminist theory in IR, however, conceptualises ‘feminisation’ in a different light. As the feminine is often devalued or deprioritised for the preferred masculine, feminisation is synonymous with devalourisation. Therefore, this paper will play with the dual meaning of feminisation, offering a cautionary tale for the dependency on women’s empowerment in the declinist literature by asserting that it is hampered by masculinist thinking. It will do so by challenging the equation of women with gender in the declinist literature. Gender equality and/or progress cannot simply be limited to raising women’s status, which implicates an understanding of gender as a binary categorisation of men/masculinity or women/femininity. Instead, gender is a spectrum that understands the multitude of gender identities, going beyond heteronormativity to lesbian, bi-, gay, trans, queer, and intersex (LBGTQI). Limiting gender to women means violences against other communities, particularly sexual minorities, is unrecognised and unaccounted for.PostprintPeer reviewe

Reduced to Bad Sex: Narratives of Violent Women from the Bible to the War on Terror

In almost every culture and everyperiod of history, a she-devil emerges asan example of all that is rotten in thefemale sex. This Medusa draws togetherthe many forms of female perversion:a woman whose sexuality is debauchedand foul, pornographic and bisexual;a woman who knows none of the fineand noble instincts when it comes tomen and children; a woman who liesand deceives, manipulates andcorrupts. A woman who is clever andpowerful. This is a woman who is fardeadlier than the male, in fact not awoman at all