44 research outputs found
Is Womenâs Studies Dead?
This article considers the recurring criticisms of Womenâs Studies. The desire for the demise of Womenâs Studies is not new yet recent demands for its end have come from Womenâs Studies scholars themselves. I review the arguments for and against the termination of the field and, although the arguments against Womenâs Studies are compelling, I argue for its continuation. This paradoxical conclusion is reached by reconsidering the âfor and againstâ debates through Wendy Brownâs use of Jacques Derridaâs âspectreâ and Walter Benjaminâs âangel of history.â Thus, despite the seduction of the discourse of conventional argumentation performed through the deconstructive critique of womenâs studies, the article reposes the question of how to retain Womenâs Studies â founded on the incoherent category of woman â whilst simultaneously subjecting the field to radical interrogation and re-organization
Theorizing sexual violence in global politics: improvising with feminist theory
A key curiosity animating this article concerns how sexual violence is theorised. The work of feminist scholars has been crucial in unearthing ways in which women's traditionally demeaned bodies regularly materialised as âeasy targetsâ for such violence. The gift of the concept of gender has played a significant role in facilitating the production of this corpus of knowledge. Less noticed in the literature, in policy and legislation has been sexual violence against men â an egregious omission. Yet it seems that redeploying the concept of gender to make sense of sexual violence against men and elevate this violence into the realms of theoretical and legislative attention is not straightforward. Identifying feminist work as in part responsible for the rendering of sexual violence against men as too âunseenâ in theory provoked my attention, though it's not that I place feminist theory as âinnocentâ or infallible â far from it. In this article I unpack some of the complexities around theorising sexual politics in Global Politics turning towards the aesthetics of feminist thinking to help reconsider the way connections take shape between gender, sex and violence. Underpinning this discussion are questions about feminist intentions to transform patriarchal and colonial structures and institutions
Forget(ting) feminism? Investigating relationality in international relations
What kind of theoretical or methodological changes are needed to more effectively theorize global politics? This question is one increasingly posed, one reason being the ever burgeoning weight of violence on our global political landscapes. To investigate this, the central concept examined at the workshop from which this special section emanates was relationality. Motivated by feminist scholarship, my initial question was, âWhy did we not focus the whole workshop around feminist theory?â This question is posed alongside the clear knowledge that the workshop was not âaboutâ feminism and thus it might not seem rational to choose such a focus. Yet given the concept and practice of relationality was so deeply embedded in feminist work, I wondered how feminism could have been forgotten. In this article, I explore the idea of âforgetting feminismâ through a further question, namely, âIs sexism (still) at work in international relations [IR]?â This involves a perusal of the work of sexual politics and sexism, IRâs putative âfailure to loveâ and a personal, relational detour into the life, work and career of Lily Lingâcorporeally suddenly absent but remaining a vital part of the work in which we are all engaged