Discussion of ISA New Orleans, 2010 (for ISA Membership)

In a post I (Laura Sjoberg) wrote on the ISA website, the problems with ISA's choice of New Orleans as a site for some of ISA's LGBTQ members are detailed, including why some of those members will be unable to come to ISA New Orleans. The text posted is reposted below:

Several weeks ago a letter was sent out to the ISA community regarding an important issue raised by some of our members. The letter in turn elicited several requests for clarification regarding the legal situation to which the letter referred. In that spirit, we offer the following clarification:

A 2004 amendment to the Louisiana Constitution denies marriage and “the legal incidents thereof” to same-sex couples. This provision places an affirmative burden on visiting lesbian and gay pairs, who may never have legally recognized relationships in Louisiana, regardless of their marriage, civil union, or domestic partnership in home states or countries. For example, the 2004 amendment invalidates by operation of law, medical-care agreements signed outside of Louisiana between the members of same-sex couples because such documents touch the legal incidents of marriage which the state constitution withholds from those pairs.

A significant difference between Louisiana and many other states appears to be that the Louisiana law is written in such a way that it will not honor contracts made in other states/countries that establish domestic partners' rights to make medical decisions, share property, execute wills, etc. As a result, a number of our LBTGQ members are uncomfortable going to New Orleans for ISA 2010. Those members believe that there is a substantial risk of a lack of equal protection of the laws in the most dire possible situations, including but not limited to critical medical emergencies.

Due to this situation, some members of ISA will not attend the conference. Others are looking to develop initiatives to show ISA's short and long-term commitment to its LGBTQ members. Still others are interested in making ISA 2010 the most productive conference it can be for ALL our members. Members interested in discussing these issues can do so on the Feminist Theory and Gender Studies Section blog, ftgss.blogspot.com.

Finally, in response to this issue, the following letter was sent out to the membership (Download March24LetterToMembers PDF).
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I have created this post on the FTGS blog for ISA member discussion, should ISA members have ideas about how to handle ISA New Orleans, have questions about the text above, or want to engage in general conversation on related issues.

Nominations, to be elected ISA 2009

Feminist Theory and Gender Studies Section Nominations, To Be Elected at ISA 2009

Section Chair, 2010-2011:
Jacqui True
University of Auckland
j.true@auckland.ac.nz

Jacqui True is a senior lecturer in international relations at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. She has been a member of FTGS since 1993 when she was a Masters student and was a graduate student representative on the Execom in 1995-6. She is a true believer in the feminist international relations community that has been built through FTGS over nearly twenty years now. She sees the FTGS chair role as an opportunity to continue building that scholarly/activist community that transgresses so many boundaries.

Jacqui is extensively published and well known for her scholarship on gender and international relations in New Zealand, Australia, Europe, Canada and the United States. She has worked with and co-authored with many FTGS members over the past fifteen years and participated in nearly every ISA, serving as FTGS program(me) chair (2002), on ISA’s Long Range Planning Committee (2003-2004) and the ISA Best Book Prize Committee (2006). She has published four books and most recently co-edited Feminist Methodologies for International Relations (2006) with Brooke Ackerly and Maria Stern and co-authored, Doing Feminist Research in Political and Social Sciences (2009) with Brooke Ackerly.

Jacqui True is nominated by:

Elisabeth Prugl
Florida International University
prugl@fiu.edu

Shirin Rai (seconder)
University of Warwick
Shirin.Rai@warwick.ac.uk

Annica Kronsell (seconder)
Lund University
Annica.Kronsell@svet.lu.se


Program Chair, ISA 2011:
Laura Parisi
University of Victoria
lparisi@uvic.ca

Laura Parisi is an assistant professor in the Department of Women’s Studies at the
University of Victoria, Victoria, BC Canada, where she teaches courses on gender and
international human rights and development, globalization, and transnational feminist
activism. Besides organizing and participating on many FTGS panels over the years, her
FTGS involvement includes:

• Co-chairing (with Brooke Ackerly) the FTGS program for ISA San Diego (2005-2006);
• serving on the FTGS best graduate student evaluation paper committee (2006-2007);
• serving on the FTGS nominations committee (2006-2007);
• chairing the FTGS mentoring committee (2008);
• writing and reviewing entries for the FTGS contribution to the ISA compendium project (2008)

Laura Parisi is nominated by:

Laura Sjoberg
Virginia Tech
sjoberg@vt.edu

Brooke Ackerly
Vanderbilt University
brooke.ackerly@vanderbilt.edu (seconder)

Spike Peterson
University of Arizona
spikep@u.arizona.edu (seconder)

Members at Large (3 slots):

1) Caron Gentry
Abilene Christian University
caron.gentry@pols.acu.edu

Caron E. Gentry is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Abilene Christian University. She participated in the Lilly Summer Fellows Program in 2005. Her work focuses on feminist theory and international security studies. Her co-authored book with Dr. Laura Sjoberg, Mothers, Monsters, Whores: Women's Violence in Global Politics, was published in 2007 with Zed Books. She has work published in Terrorism and Political Violence, the International Feminist Journal of Politics, International Relations, and the Austrian Political Science Journal. Caron has been a Member-at-large for FTGS for two years and is currently serving as the nominations committee chair.

Caron Gentry is nominated by:

Laura Sjoberg
Virginia Tech
sjoberg@vt.edu

Lauren Wilcox
University of Minnesota
laurenbwilcox@hotmail.com

Francine D’Amico
Syracuse University
fjdamico@maxwell.syr.edu

2) Annick T. R. Wibben
University of San Francisco
awibben@usfca.edu

Annick T.R. Wibben is an Assistant Professor of Politics at the University of San Franciso (USF), where she is actively involved in the interdisciplinary International Studies Program. She received her Ph.D.in International Politics from the University of Wales in Aberystwyth, UK and also holds an M.Soc.Sc. in IR and European Studies from the University of Tampere in Finland and a Vordiplom in Economics from the University of Hamburg, Germany. In addition to her appointment at USF, Annick continues to be affiliated with the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University where she worked with the Information Technology, War and Peace Project [infopeace.org] from 2001-2005.

Annick teaches International Politics and specializes in feminist IR, (critical) security studies, and IR theory. Before joining the USF faculty, she taught at Brown University, Bryant College, and Wellesley College. In the fall of 2003, she was a Rockefeller Humanities Fellow for Human Security with the National Council for Research on Women and the Center for the Study of Women and Society at the City University of New York Graduate Center.
Annick is currently working on her book on Feminist Security Studies (Routledge 2009) and recently published “Human Security: Toward an Opening” in Security Dialogue. She has presented her work at the intersection of feminist IR and security studies at numerous conferences and has published a few articles in the area, including an often cited piece on "Feminist International Relations: Old Debates and New Directions" in the Brown Journal of World Affairs (2004). She has also co-produced a documentary, After 9/11, with James Der Derian and Udris Productions (2004). Her Narrating Experience: Raymond Aron and Feminist Scholars Revis(it)ed (1998) was published by the University of Tampere.

Annick Wibben is nominated by:
Suzanne Levi-Sanchez
Rutgers University
levisan@pacbell.net

Megan MacKenzie (seconder)
Harvard Univeristy
Megan_MacKenzie@ksg.harvard.edu

Sandy McEvoy (seconder)
Clark University
smcevoy@clarku.edu

3) Megan McKenzie
Harvard University
Megan MacKenzie is currently a post-doctoral fellow at the Belfer Center for International Security and the Women and Public Policy Program at the Kennedy School, Harvard University. MacKenzie has published in areas related to gender and development, international relations, security studies, and post-conflict transitions, including “Securitization and De-securitization: Female Soldiers and the Construction of the Family” in a special edition of Security Studies edited by Laura Sjoberg and a chapter in R. Charli Carpenter’s book Born of War: Protecting Children Born to Sexual Violence Survivors in Conflict Zones. Working through development studies, women’s studies, and international relations, her related research interests include securitization discourses, the influence of the liberal family model (including hegemonic ideas relating to heterosexual marriage, mother-child bonds and the male ‘breadwinner’) on development discourses, critical development studies, and sex and war.

Megan is nominated by:

Laura Sjoberg
Virginia Tech
sjoberg@vt.edu

Caron Gentry (seconder)
Abilene Christian University
ceg03@acu.edu

Annick Wibben (seconder)
University of San Francisco
awibben@usfca.edu

Student Representative, 2009-2011:
Jennifer Pedersen
Department of International Politics, University of Wales, Aberystwyth
jlp06@aber.ac.uk

Jennifer Pedersen is a PhD Candidate at the Department of International Politics at Aberystwyth University, Wales. Her research looks at two women’s peace movements, the Women in Peacebuilding Network of Liberia and the Raging Grannies of North America. Her thesis examines how women peace activists challenge stereotypes of women’s roles in politics and open up new political space for women. Jennifer has a Master’s in International Security Studies from the University of St. Andrews, where she was a British Chevening Scholar, and a Bachelor of Humanities (Highest Honours) degree from Carleton University in Ottawa. She spent six months as an intern with the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding in Accra, Ghana, in 2005 – 2006. She has presented papers on her research on women in peacebuilding in Liberia at the 2007 British International Studies Association Conference and the 2008 International Studies Association Annual Convention, and has presented her research on the Raging Grannies at the 2008 Association for Research on Mothering Conference in Toronto. At Aberystwyth University she serves as co-convenor of the Security Research Group and convenor of the Critical Approaches to Terrorism Research Group. Jennifer was awarded Aberystwyth University’s Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Award in July 2008.

Jennifer Pederson is nominated by:

Annick Wibben
University of San Francisco
awibben@usfca.edu

Soumita Basu (seconder)
University of Wales Aberystwyth
sbb05@aber.ac.uk

Laura Sjoberg (seconder)
Virginia Tech
sjoberg@vt.edu

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Environmental Committee: Please comment on our draft proposals!

The FTGS environmental committee is working with the Environmental Studies Section (ESS) to develop proposals promoting more environmentally-friendly conferencing both for the sections and ISA as a whole. As part of this, we have drafted four sets of proposals:

1) a statement of principle supporting environmentally-friendly conferencing for FTGS to consider adopting as a section,
2) a statement of principle supporting environmentally-friendly conferencing for ISA to consider adopting as a whole,
3) a list of practical steps supporting environmentally-friendly conferencing for FTGS to consider adopting in whole or in part, and
4) a list of practical steps supporting environmentally-friendly conferencing for ISA to consider adopting in whole or in part

This is where we need your help! Please review the following draft proposals and then give us your feedback. We want to hear your suggestions and ideas and we value your contribution!

To ensure that we can send our proposals to the ISA Governing Council this year for incorporation in ISA’s 2009 annual conference, we ask you to submit all comments by September 15th 2008. Please feel free to either use the “comments” option on the blog, or contact environmental committee members directly.

Thanks for getting involved!


FTGS Environmental Committee members:
Carrie Currier: C.Currier@tcu.edu
Abigail E. Ruane: abigailr@usc.edu
Heather Turcotte: hmturcotte@juno.com
Jessica Urban: jlu5@humboldt.edu

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I. Statement of Principle: For FTGS to consider adopting as a section

Propose that FTGS as a section adopt a general statement supporting environmentally-friendly conferencing (we could put this on the website / blog). E.g.,

"As feminists, we are committed to targeting all kinds of relationships of dominance and promoting in their stead relationships of mutual benefit and empowerment. Because of this, we support environmentally responsible conferencing as an effort to reduce the exploitation of our natural resources and promote a more sustainable basis for scholarly collaboration."

II. Statement of Principle: For ISA to consider adopting as a whole

Propose that ISA adopt a general statement supporting environmentally-friendly conferencing.

E.g., (adapted from BlueGreen Meetings: http://www.bluegreenmeetings.org/HostsAndPlanners/10EasyTips.htm):
The International Studies Association is committed to minimizing the environmental impact of its annual conference (“the event”) through:
1. Decreasing the amount of solid waste produced by the event;
2. Reducing energy and water consumption at the event;
3. Minimizing or off-setting harmful emissions resulting from vehicular transportation and energy consumption associated with the event;
4. Disposing of solid and liquid waste in an environmentally responsible manner; and
5. Eliminating the use of harmful chemicals at or for the event.

III. Practical Steps: For FTGS to consider

Propose that FTGS support efforts by other sections to promote environmentally responsible conferencing. (This will increase impact and reduce inefficiency in overlapping efforts.)

Specifically:

1. Support the Environmental Studies Section in their proposal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the conference when they submit it to ISA (under consideration at their section’s 2008 business meeting), or other proposals.

2. Work with ESS at upcoming ISA and revisit our document development after that point.

Note: Heather Turcotte met with 2007-2008 ES Chair Elizabeth DeSombre (edesombr@wellesley.edu) on Wednesday, 3/26/08, to discuss building a more “green” ISA. Beth DeSombre is going to be the 2010 ISA Program chair and suggested the two sections work together to develop a “pilot project” of proposals to initiate at the 2009 conference in New York and develop for the 2010 conference in New Orleans. Ideally, both philosophy and practical options as currently drafted would be elaborated in more detail based on FTGS and ESS member input. Some points to focus on include:
a. Carbon off-set emission option for the conference- Beth is looking into this through the model of APSA
b. Encouragement of University reimbursements to people who choose off-set costs
c. More public recycling options at conference
d. Encouraging ISA to choose conference sites that support green practices

IV. Practical Steps: For ISA to consider

Propose that ISA make concrete steps toward becoming more environmentally responsible (for potential steps see BlueGreen’s “Environmentally Sustainable Conferences” or their website at: http://www.bluegreenmeetings.org/index.htm). We particularly support the following steps:

1. Teleconference whenever possible
a. If possible, have pre-ISA leadership meetings via teleconferencing to reduce air travel & associated environmental costs
b. Make sure that funds are allocated so that this does not disenfranchise people with less funding / access (especially non-Westerners and women)

2. Ask conference centers that are being considered for future ISA conferences what their environmental plan is. If all else is equal, go with the conference site with the better environmental plan. (This will encourage conference venues to HAVE environmental plans.) Environmental plans should address:
a. Location of conference: How far will the average person have to travel? (Shorter is better for conservation.)
b. Access to conference center: How far will the average person have to travel once at the conference? (Shorter is better.) (Also need to think about what obstacles people other than the "average person" who are more likely to be disenfranchised have to deal with here.)
c. How efficiently will resources be used? Are the conference center, associated hotels, and major contractors (e.g., food service), “green”? E.g.:
i. water use: high/low flush toilets, fountains outside, landscaping use
ii. energy systems: heating / air conditioning efficiency, lighting
iii. waste materials: recycling (how much trash would an ISA conference produce?)

3. Reduce conference waste, wherever the conference is held
a. Make the conference program primarily electronic. E.g.,:
i. Amend panel submission form so that, upon registration, people can choose not to receive a hard copy of the conference program
ii. Create a few computer stations (not email stations?) for people to recheck panel locations
iii. Print a daily list of panels (e.g., on supersized posterboard)
b. Eliminate or minimize use of conference bags and other conference misc. E.g.,:
i. Amend panel submission form so that, upon registration, people can choose not to receive a conference bag / other misc.
c. Print programs on recycled paper
d. Create an FTGS/ISA coffee mug to reduce waste from paper cups (can be used for advertising). (Need to solicit cup art and funding.)
e. Require recycling areas (e.g., for paper, newspaper, conference programs, cans)

4. Add a fee which can be used to purchase “carbon offsets”
e.g., “green tags” (spending money to make up for the environmental impact of the conference – either to make it a net zero impact or a lower level of impact that it otherwise would have been)

FTGS Section Name

(From Francine D'Amico)

I propose to change the name of the section to the Feminist Theory & Gender, Race/Ethnicity, & Sexuality Studies Section. This would reflect and recognize the intersectionality/diversity of both our research agendas and our identities and hence be a more accurate reflection of our section members and interests. The title is also more inclusive, inviting broader participation in future conferences.

Discussion of ISA 2010, New Orleans (started by Eve Sandberg)

Dear FTGS People,

In four years the American Political Science Association annual conference will be held in New Orleans. Please see the Hirsh Brown document in the comment sction for the problems with this.

ISA will hold its annual conference in New Orleans in two years. It is too close to the conference date to move the conference.

I cannot attend as someone with a same sex partner - see the Hirsch and Brown in the comments below and my own comments after theirs.

I would hope that some straight allies can take some appropriate action while there. Hence I open this discussion.

Eve

ISA 2009 Organizing

This post is a place where you can post things you are working on for ISA 2009 to find others that might be interested in putting together panels for the conference. Be sure to list your name and a way to contact you. If you don't want to put your email address on the blog, feel free to list mine, and then I will forward it to you when I receive anything interesting. Also, check back regularly for reply posts.

ISA 2009 Call for Papers

Feminist Theory and Gender Studies Section

Call for Papers, ISA 2009

“Exploring the Past, Anticipating the Future”

Submission Deadline: May 30, 2008 (submit to ISA)

Laura Sjoberg, Program Chair

program@femisa.org

The 2009 ISA Call for Papers emphasizes the context of the landscape of international relations research, linking the past to the future with a wide variety of ontological, epistemological, and ontological perspectives. It looks at various questions of continuity and change in international relations. The theme, “Exploring the Past, Anticipating the Future,” inspires our section to continue important conversations that we have been having, to push the boundaries of our current scholarly interests, and to move forward conversations both across subfields of International Relations and across scholarly disciplines.

What insights do gendered lenses provide for exploring the past and anticipating the future? How can we use feminist insights to create productive conversations about text and context? Can we use questions of continuity and change to get included in conversations which generally omit gender concerns, and include a larger audience in our conversations? What do diverse perspectives contribute to our work, and what do we contribute to others? How has our work dealt with difference in the scholarly world and in the world of global politics? Does it have something to contribute to the theme’s mission to explore the “twin pitfalls of over-predicting and under-predicting change? How does our work dialogue with that of others in our section, our departments, our universities, and our worlds? What can we do to create that dialogue, at ISA and beyond?

These “new” conversations could occur not only between members of the FTGS section and others within ISA, but also between our members themselves. How would the serious study of change make our conversations different? Or the serious study of context?

This theme, combined with the location of the conference, also provides the unique opportunity of pulling people who normally do not come to ISA into our discussions. What do sociologists, psychologists, geographers, and others study and argue that has relevance to our work? What would a dialogue with those people look like? What do practitioners think about these questions as they relate to our work? Could we include members policy communities (e.g., the United Nations; the NGO working group on Women, Peace, and Security; Women in International Security; the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom?) What would they say about our work, and what insight might we have into theirs?

The convention theme is also presents a challenge to our section – as the themes of the past few years have emphasized concerns traditionally salient in FTGS (bridging divides, the politics of scholarship, etc). As it is worded, the ISA call for papers includes terms familiar to feminist work – context, continuity, and change – but uses them in ways different than we imagine them applying; mostly in reference to system-level processes. This challenge, however, is both a difficulty and an opportunity – an opportunity to share our interpretations of continuity/change and the structure/agent debate with those unfamiliar with feminist theory and gender studies. Recently, there are those who have argued that scholars can study gender in the terms of the mainstream, without a concern for feminists’ interest in gender subordination. How does our work answer that argument? How would a feminist study the “gender gap” or civilian immunity or the rational design of international institutions? What would we say to other IR scholars about the empirical and theoretical focuses of their work? Given that, can we construct those dialogues? If we do construct those dialogues, how can we make sure that we are heard?

The Feminist Theory and Gender Studies section invites panels and individual papers from diverse perspectives, including those examining globalization, democratization, human rights, security, gender mainstreaming, disciplinary and physical borders, indigenous issues, security, nationalism, terrorism, interstate and intrastate conflict, and post-conflict societies. Questions that can be addressed include:

• What are the perspectives feminist theory and gender studies can add to the “mainstream” on the questions of continuity and change in the international system? What are the ways that our work interrogates whether these are the right questions to ask or the right assumptions to start with?

• There’s “context” in terms of history, then there’s context in terms of surroundings. In what context, in the section, in the discipline, or in the policy world, do we do our research? How is it reliant on our context? How can it transform it?

• How does exploring the past of feminist theory and gender studies (as a scholarly endeavor and/or as a section) help us anticipate its future?

• How does feminist scholarship see, account for, and deal with change in international relations? In gender relations? Are gender relations changing in global politics? If so, how?

Continuing the trend of previous years, we are also interested in panels that create productive conversations across ISA sections, and the IR discipline across the board. For example, interdisciplinary panels that engage questions of security, environment, and gender; global development, international political economy, and gender; Information and Communications Technologies and gender; panels which address an issue-area from differing research traditions; panels that create conversations across different approaches within FTGS.

Also, continuing a successful request from last year, we are interested in encouraging participation from scholars and practitioners who work from areas beyond the North American and/or European academes. We are particularly interested in papers by authors who are co-authoring across these geographies. Scholars new to ISA or to the Feminist Theory Gender Studies section are particularly encouraged to apply.

Further, FTGS encourages you to email program@femisa.org for help finding people to be on a panel with and for help with your innovative ideas. We remind you that you can use our blog – ftgss.blogspot.com in order to communicate with other members of the section. Also, we remind you that you need to submit your panels and papers and roundtables to two sections when you fill out the form on the ISA website.

Finally, there are some changes that will take place at ISA 2009. First, ISA will be running five sessions every day – without a scheduled break for lunch. Second, ISA 2009 begins on Sunday and ends on Wednesday, with Saturday being set aside for workshops. Make sure that you remember this when making your travel plans. Third, BOTH THE ISA PROGRAM CHAIRS AND I WILL BE ENFORCING PARTICIPATION MAXIMUMS ON ALL MEMBERS. You can present twice (papers and roundtables) but no more than twice. This is because the conference will be smaller next year than it was this year, and ISA wants to make sure that the most people have the opportunity to participate. Keep in mind, though, that discussant roles do not count against this maximum, and FTGS appreciates your continued service as discussants.