Workshop Report
A workshop entitled ‘Gender and Governance: Gender and International Relations in
Britain’ was held in the Department of Politics at the University of Bristol on 28
September 2006. The workshop was sponsored by the British Journal of Politics and
International Relations (published by the Political Studies Association and Blackwell
Publishing), and by the Institute for Advanced Studies, the Governance Research
Centre and the Department of Politics, all at the University of Bristol. Workshop
participants – many of whom have some current or historical connection to the
University of Bristol – presented papers that will be part of a special issue of the
British Journal of Politics and International Relations.
The first session of the workshop, ‘Negotiating Gender and IR,’ featured a paper by
Marysia Zalewski (University of Aberdeen) entitled ‘Troubling feminist encounters
with International Relations’, which sparked a lively discussion about, among other
things, the relationship of feminism to neo-feminism, whether feminism in IR has
‘failed’ in its transformative project, and what the nature of that transformation ought
to be. The marginality of feminism in the discipline of IR – a theme throughout the
workshop -- was raised early on as well.
The second session, entitled ‘Gender, Security and the State’, featured five papers,
although only three of the authors were able to attend the workshop. Johanna Kantola
(University of Helsinki) presented ‘Feminism and the state in International Relations’
and Dibyesh Anand (University of Bath) presented ‘Gendered anxieties: Representing
Muslim masculinities as a danger’. These two papers generated a very interesting
discussion of the gendered nature of the state and the role of gender in its
reproduction. While Johanna’s paper focused on the need for feminists to
reconceptualise the state, and to rethink the articulation of the local, national and
global, in light of globalisation, Dibyesh’s paper highlighted the role of sexualities
and masculinities in the remasculinisation of Hindu men in India’s Hindutva
movement, and the complicity of the state in heavily gendered communal violence.
Christina Rowley (University of Bristol) presented her film review of Joss Whedon‘s
Serenity, which, along with several other papers, raised interesting discussions about
the deployment of particular representations of both hyper-masculinity and femininity
as mechanisms through which to re-validate a traditional romantic masculinity.
Laura Shepherd’s (University of Birmingham) ‘“Victims, perpetrators, and actors”
revisited: Exploring the potential for a feminist reconceptualisation of (international)
security and (gender) violence’ and Terrell Carver’s (University of Bristol) review of
the film GI Jane were presented and briefly discussed in absentia.
The third session, entitled ‘Engaging from the Margins’, raised a series of fascinating
issues about the gendered character of the contemporary neoliberal order. Bice
Maiguashca (University of Exeter) presented a paper co-authored with Catherine
Eschle (Strathclyde University) entitled ‘Studying feminist ‘anti-globalisation’
activism in IR.’ In this paper Bice and Catherine use their previous ethnographic
research into feminist anti-globalisation activism to provide a critical analysis of
critical theories in IR. Lara Coleman (University of Bristol) presented ‘The gendered
violence of development: Imaginative geographies of exception in the neoliberal
order’, in which she argued that gendered hierarchies are being mobilized to make
possible the violent imposition of neoliberal development in Colombia. Marina
Prieto-Carron (University of Bristol) presented her preliminary ideas for a paper
examining how feminist voices from the ‘global south’ – particularly Central America
– can challenge the assumptions of both mainstream and feminist IR, while David
Black (University of Bristol) presented his preliminary ideas for a paper examining
those gendered/raced/classed penal and carceral technologies that form the obscene
side of the neoliberal order while also underpinning the contemporary war on terror.
Lively discussions revolved around issues of gender, neoliberalism, and imperialism.
Penny Griffin’s (University of Bristol) ‘Sexing the economy in a neoliberal world
order: Neoliberal discourse and the (re)production of (heteronormative)
heterosexuality’ was presented and briefly discussed in absentia.
In the final session, entitled ‘Beyond being marginal: Gender and IR in Britain,’ we
discussed an experimental piece produced jointly by the Bristol Gender and
Governance Reading Group. The group took Jill Steans’ 2003 BJPIR article
‘Engaging from the Margins,’ a ‘state of the art’ assessment of feminism in IR, as a
springboard for discussion of the issues it raised, notably such issues as the
(perceived) marginality of feminism from mainstream IR, the nature of gender
analysis, and the positive contributions that gender analysis has made to a
reconceptualised discipline of International Relations. Jill Steans (University of
Birmingham) offered a very useful response to the group draft, which was followed
by animated discussion of the politics of knowledge production and the advantages
and disadvantages of being situated ‘on the margins’.
We were very pleased with the excellent quality of the papers and the lively and
supportive workshop discussions. Postgraduates, staff and researchers from various
departments across the University attended the workshop and participated actively in
the discussions, as did several visitors from as far afield as Manchester. Judith Squires
and Jutta Weldes (University of Bristol) will be editing the special issue of BJPIR,
due out in May of 2007, which we think will provide an excellent illustration of the
vibrant, sustained, self-reflexive scholarship being produced in ‘gender and IR’ in
Britain.