Feminist Theory and Gender Studies

NEW FTGS Research Blog!

2011-11-07T13:07:00.000-05:00

Dear All -
Check out the new FTGS research blog for information about new publications, blog posts by members, and more...

The blog provides all FTGS members an opportunity to share their research:

If you are would like to have your (recent!) research posted, please send an e-mail with details.
If you would like to become an FTGS research blogger, let us know and we'll add you to the blog.
If you already blog elsewhere, we'd love to link to your blog, so tell us where you're blogging.

Any other suggestions? Get in touch with the FTGS Communications Committee. We look forward to hearing from you.

Annick*

A Message from the FTGS Communications Committee

2011-04-22T17:39:00.001-04:00

Dear All -

Please bear with us as we develop a new FTGS communications strategy.

If you would like to get up-to-date information about FTGS, please join:

1. Our listserv: http://groups.google.com/group/feministtheory?hl=en

2. Our group on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1238994638#!/home.php?sk=group_160991100623587

We look forward to seeing you "virtually" soon!
Annick*

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

2009-04-23T09:01:00.003-04:00

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).
___
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

2008-12-29T18:24:00.000-05:00

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

From Millennium

2008-08-21T15:51:00.001-04:00

Millennium: Journal of International Studies is now published by SAGE. The journal aims to publish the most innovative articles from the discipline of international studies, as well as original thinking with an international dimension from elsewhere in the social sciences.

Interdisciplinary and wide-ranging in scope, the journal provides a forum for discussion on the latest developments in the theory of international relations, welcoming innovative and critical approaches. It particularly encourages contributions from research students and young academics, but is also open to submissions from established scholars.

Since 1971 Millennium: Journal of International Studies has been a student run peer-reviewed journal at the cutting edge of the discipline of International Relations, establishing a reputation for challenging preconceptions about the topography of the discipline. As a journal close to the student research community, Millennium: Journal of International Studies has always aspired to be a high-quality yet accessible publication.

Click here to find out more

Environmental Committee: Please comment on our draft proposals!

2008-07-01T10:52:00.001-04:00

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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

2008-05-07T21:01:00.000-04:00

(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)

2008-05-01T10:37:00.000-04:00

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

2008-04-04T09:50:00.001-04:00

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

2008-04-04T09:47:00.000-04:00

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.

FTGS Nominattions, 2009-2010

2008-01-21T10:22:00.000-05:00

Section Chair Nominee (2009-10):

Laura Sjoberg

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

sjoberg@vt.edu

Nominated by

V. Spike Peterson

Seconds:

Mary Meyer, Eckerd College, meyermk@eckerd.edu

Jane Parpart, Centre for Gender and Development Studies, University of West Indies, Trinidad, parpart@dal.ca

Brooke Ackerly, Vanderbilt, brooke.ackerly@vanderbilt.edu

Biography:

I have served as the FTGS program chair for ISA 2007 and ISA 2008, and have been elected to serve as the program chair again for ISA 2009. I have also been the FTGS webmaster for three years, and served on the editorial board for the FTGS section of the ISA Compendium project, editing eight essays and writing one. I want to be the section chair because I deeply care about FTGS, and believe that I have something to offer in that position. As President-Elect of ISA West, and 3-year program chair for our section, I've learned a lot about ISA specifically and leadership generally. I am organized, enthusiastic, and I manage my time well. For those of you who do not know, my work centers around gender issues in international security. I have written Gender, Justice, and the Wars in Iraq (Lexington 2006) and (with Caron Gentry) Mothers, Monsters, Whores: Women's Violence in Global Politics (Zed 2007). My work has also been published in International Studies Quarterly, the International Feminist Journal of Politics, and International Studies Perspectives and is forthcoming in Politics and Gender, International Studies Review, International Politics, and International Relations. I am currently editing a special issue of Security Studies on feminist contributions to the field. I would appreciate the opportunity to continue my hard work for the section.

Program/Vice Chair Nominee (2009-10):

Laura Shepherd

University of Birmingham

l.j.shepherd@bham.ac.uk

Nominated by:

Laura Sjoberg, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, sjoberg@vt.edu

Seconds:

Annick Wibben, University of San Francisco, awibbe@usfca.edu

Brooke Ackerly, Vanderbilt University, brooke.ackerly@vanderbilt.edu

Biography:

Dr. Laura Shepherd has served in 2007-2009 as a member at large for the Feminist Theory and Gender Studies Section, and is an active member of the British ISA Working Group on Gendering International Relations. She has played a key role in the organization of the year of events in celebration of 20 years of British Gender and IR. Laura developed an interest in critical and feminist theory as an undergraduate and continued to focus on the politics of gender during her first MSc degree (Sussex). Having been awarded her PhD (Bristol) in January 2007, she teaches and researches gender politics, including feminist theory and feminist International Relations theory, as well as US foreign policy, security in theory and policy discourse, International Relations theory and the politics of representation. Dr. Shepherd Her work has been published in Millennium, the International Feminist Journal of Politics, the British Journal of International Relations, and Review of International Studies. She has a forthcoming article in International Studies Quarterly, and is anticipating the release of her book: Gender, Violence, and Security (Zed Books, 2008).

Member-at-Large Nominees (2008-10): (3 positions open)

1) Kevin Dunn

Hobart and William Smith Colleges

k-d-@mekons.com

Nominated by:

Jane Parpart, Centre for Gender and Development Studies, University of West Indies, Trinidad, parpart@dal.ca

Seconds:

Marianne Marchand, Professor of International Relations at the University of the Americas, Puebla, Mexico, marianne.h.marchand@gmail.com
Laura Sjoberg, Political Science, Virginia Tech, sjoberg@vt.edu

Biography:

Kevin C. Dunn is associate professor of political science at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, NY. He teaches a variety of courses on international relations: Introduction to IR, Theories of IR, American Foreign Policy, and Feminisms in IR. He did his undergraduate work at Davidson College, received a MA from Dalhousie University, and his PhD from Boston University. His monograph Imagining the Congo: The international relations of identity was published by Palgrave in 2003. He has also co-edited three books: Africa's Challenge to International Relations Theory (with Timothy M. Shaw; 2001), Identity and Global Politics: Theoretical and empirical elaborations (with Patricia Goff; 2004) and most recently African Guerrillas: Raging against the machine (with Morten Bøås; 2007). He has also published articles on Africa, international relations theory, and punk rock in numerous academic journals. His most recent work includes "Interrogating White Male Privilege in International Relations" for Jane Parpart and Marysia Zalewski's forthcoming volume Re-Thinking the 'Man' Question in International Politics.

2) Caron Gentry

Abilene Christian University

caron.gentry@pols.acu.edu

Nominated by:

Laura Sjoberg, Virginia Tech sjoberg@vt.edu

Seconds:

Lauren Wilcox, University of Minnesota, laurenbwilcox@hotmail.com

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

Biography:

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. She has forthcoming publications with 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.

3) Annick T. R. Wibben

University of San Francisco

awibben@usfca.edu.

Nominated by:

Suzanne Levi-Sanchez, San Francisco State University, levisan@pacbell.net

Seconds:

Ann Tickner, University of Southern California, tickner@usc.edu

Megan MacKenzie, University of Alberta, mhmurphy@ualberta.ca

Laura Shepherd, University of Birmingham, l.j.shepherd@bham.ac.uk

Sandy McEvoy, Clark University, smcevoy@clarku.edu

Biography:

Annick T.R. Wibben is an Assistant Professor of Politics at the University of San Franciso (USF), where she also directs the Peace and Justice Studies Program and 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 has been working with the Information Technology, War and Peace Project [infopeace.org] since 2001.

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). 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.

4) Carrie Currier

Texas Christian University

c.currier@tcu.edu

Nominated by:

Brooke Ackerly, Vanderbilt University, brooke.ackerly@vanderbilt.edu

Seconds:

Laura Shepherd, University of Birmingham, l.j.shepherd@bham.ac.uk

Laura Parisi, University of Victoria, lparisi@uvic.ca

Biography:

Carrie Liu Currier has been an invaluable volunteer for FTGS this year. She has helped with the environmental committee and chaired the poster committee. It will be great for FTGS to have her continue in this work as a member at large this year.

Carrie Liu Currier is an Assistant Professor of Political Science and the Director of Asian Studies at Texas Christian University. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Arizona. Her research interests are focused on China's economic reform policies and is based on survey work that examines labor market reform and its impact on women's public and private sphere activities in Beijing, with articles in China Public Affairs Quarterly, the American Journal of Chinese Studies, and the Asian Journal of Women's Studies. In addition, she is working on articles dealing with Chinese Foreign Policy with Iran, and global sex trafficking issues in Southeast Asia.

5) Denise M. Horn

Northeastern University

d.horn@neu.edu

Nominated by:

Debra Lebowitz, Drew University, dliebowi@drew.edu

Seconds:

Carol Cohn, Boston Consortium, carol.cohn@genderandsecurity.org

Heather Turcotte, University of California, Santa Cruz, hmturcotte@juno.com

Biography:

Denise M. Horn is Assistant Professor of International Affairs at Northeastern University in Boston, MA. She served as the Associate Director of the Center for Global Security and Democracy at Rutgers University, where she was instrumental in the development of the Civic Engagement Program (CEPO) at the State University of Moldova in Chisinau, Moldova. The program has expanded to include teacher training, statistical research, and student involvement in local and international NGOs and the community. At Northeastern, Dr. Horn spearheaded the development of the Global Partnership for Activism and Cross-Cultural Training (Global PACT), a peer-to-peer training program in grassroots activism and advocacy, with local trainings in Boston and international trainings in South Africa, Brazil, Thailand, Croatia and Cambodia.

Dr. Horn’s recent research examines the effects of US foreign funding in the development of civil society in transitional states of the former Soviet Union, particularly in the areas of women's issues and women's NGOs. She has written extensively on the effects of US foreign funding upon women’s social and political participation in Moldova and Estonia. Currently, she is researching these effects in Southeast Asia. Her forthcoming book, Gentle Invasions: Geopolitics in a Transitional Era, explores the implications of democracy promotion for US geopolitical strategy and global stability.

Student Representative Nominee (2008-10): (1-2 positions open)

Suzanne Levi –Sanchez

San Francisco Sate University

levisan@pacbell.net

Nominated by:

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

Seconds:

Laura Sjoberg, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, sjoberg@vt.edu

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

Biography:

Suzanne Levi-Sanchez is a Master of Arts graduate student in International Relations at San Francisco State University with a regional focus on Iran. She has been researching the countries of Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan for the past seven years and will likely go to Afghanistan next year to research the Hazara ethnic group for the United States government. Suzanne is currently applying to PhD programs in Political Science and has won several academic awards for her scholarship. She has been published in /WIIS Words/ at Georgetown University, the San Francisco Chronicle, and has an upcoming paper in a journal at the University of Hull in England. She will present two papers at the International Studies Association conference in 2008 as well as the Midwest Political Science Association (2008). All three papers are on Iran either regarding social movement or the nuclear issue. She recently presented to papers at International Studies Association-West in September of 2007. She serves in the capacity of Bay Area Regional Coordinator for Women in International Security (WIIS-West).

How can we improve the poster session at ISA?

2007-09-26T10:48:00.000-04:00

The FTGS poster session committee has developed some ideas for how we could improve the annual ISA poster session, and would like your feedback! We have brainstormed what we see as being problems with the existing way the poster sessions work and ways to improve them below. However, we need your help! If you have any additional suggestions or comments, please respond to this posting with a comment. We will then seek to make structural changes to the poster sessions by submitting a proposal to the ISA executive committee. We look forward to hearing from you.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Preliminary notes on Poster Sessions at the Annual Conventions of the International Studies Association

What the ISA says:
“Done effectively, posters can provide a political scientist with much more feedback than s/he would receive during a traditional panel session. An alternative method to panels for disseminating and evaluating research, poster sessions are a visual and concise method of presenting one's work. Though they are relatively new to political science, poster sessions have long been utilized at professional meetings by a number of other academic and professional organizations ... As other convention delegates come … and look over your presentation, you have the opportunity to engage in a much more detailed discussion of your research, the methodology and your findings than you might otherwise in a traditional panel format.” (International Studies Association 2007).

What James Lebovic says:
“The poster room – a place where presenters can stand next to fragments of their conference paper on display – is an alternative to panels for presenting research findings. By visiting a poster room, one can avoid the 2-hour time commitment of attending a panel or an uncomfortable early exit from a panel in progress. For the presenter, the poster room provides an opportunity to present research without sharing the stage with a panel chair, discussant, and panellists or carrying the burden of having to interact with other life forms. The downside is that the presenter must stand for 2 hours surrounded by people whose ideas were deemed by the conference organizers as too revolutionary to debut in a traditional forum” (International Studies Perspectives 2006).

Key problems with the current state of poster sessions:
1. Poor location/timing:
There is often a distinct air of desperation around the poster room, as 2 hours is a long time to stand in the hope that someone will come and engage with your work.
2. Lack of organization & value assigned to them:
The first extract constructs a very positive picture of the experience of presenting a poster. However many have noted the poster room is more of a dumping ground for graduate students and overtly interdisciplinary work.
3. Positivist emphasis
The professional organizations that are cited in the first extract are predominantly positivist in orientation and therefore likely to encourage works that can be illustrated graphically. However this method would be less appropriate for say something like poststructural discourse analysis.

Suggestions to improve the poster sessions:
1. Preparation issues:
a. Establish suggested poster expectations/ standardize poster dimensions (to help the room look more professional)
b. There is a wide range of websites that offer information on how to produce effective posters and it would certainly be worth suggesting to the ISA that they link to these sites from their own page on poster presentations, despite the subject-specific nature of some of them. The sites include:
http://www.asp.org/education/howto_onPosters.html
http://www.ncsu.edu/project/posters http://lorien.ncl.ac.uk/ming/dept/Tips/present/posters.htm
http://people.eku.edu/ritchisong/posterpres.html
http://www.biophysics.org/education/block.pdf
(this latter is particularly useful as it offers ‘Do’s and Don’t’s’ of poster presentation in a very accessible format)
c. Encourage more interactive poster presentations, utilizing technology (websites, moving images, short films, etc) to make them more visually appealing and innovative

2. Location/Timing: Making the poster sessions a place people want to go
a. Shorter poster sessions (not 2 hour blocks) – perhaps around coffee breaks or middle of the day times (10:30, 2pm) – but not around lunch/end of the day
b. Have ISA schedule a special poster time slot (maybe 30-45 minutes) each day that occurs between panels (such as times listed above) so posters do not directly compete with conventional panels for time. A dedicated time slot for posters would also encourage more attendees to explore the poster room and would add value to the poster session (tied to the issues under Organization & Value below)
c. Large room so there is enough space to roam around
d. Host a reception or meeting in the poster room
e. Hold one grand poster session timeslot for the section, at a time when no other panels for the section compete (might be easy to link the slot then with a business meeting/reception).

3. Organization & Value: must make more effort to demonstrate posters are valued
a. Suggest that poster sessions are themed and organized like panels, to avoid the ‘mish-mash’ of ideas and approaches that most poster sessions embody.
b. Amend the panel submission form so that people could choose to submit poster panels. This would diminish the negative association of posters with ‘failed’ papers.
c. Group posters by related sections and use big signs to identify related themes (e.g., FTGS, Security, etc.) – makes it easier for people to find what they are interested in
d. Have fewer posters in a session (6-8) and hold the poster session in an ordinary panel room
e. Have conference organizers open the poster session

4. Added features:
a. Increasing flow of people into the room:
- have food/drinks or the coffee break in the poster room
- put email stations in the back of the poster room
- have places for people to have discussions (tables/chairs for people to sit down and meet)
b. Awards for best student posters, or best poster in other categories
c. More advertising:
- At the end of related paper sessions, chairs can announce/advertise related posters (listing titles/authors)
- Sections can advertise their posters more by placing abstracts of poster papers on their section website to encourage attendance
d. Make announcements in the poster room
e. Instead of looking at poster sessions for completed paper work – poster sessions might be utilized as a venue for works in progress, giving participants a chance to talk with others about their research and get feedback before it is completed (the concern: would ISA accept this kind of idea?).

Program Chair Discussion

2007-01-31T18:15:00.000-05:00

Members can post their opinions in the comment section here. Then all FTGS members can read them at their leisure. I am not posting the discussion thus far without authors' permission, but feel free to use this from now on, and to post your own discussion before now.

ISA Compenduim Project

2006-10-29T17:26:00.000-05:00

Contribute to the Feminist Theory and Gender Studies Section effort in the ISA Compendium Project! Brooke Ackerly, 2007-2008 section chair, is spearheading the effort. Information can be found at:

http://sitemason.vanderbilt.edu/psci/ackerly/Compendium

In Memory of Misty Gerner

2006-06-21T18:44:00.000-04:00

This is forwarded from Vicki Golich
______________________________________

Dear Colleagues,

I write to let you know -- in case you have not otherwise learned -- that
Misty passed away on June 19. Her husband, Phil Schrodt, writes "Misty's
long struggle with cancer has ended: She died shortly after noon on Monday,
19 June. Everything worked to the end: she was in her own bed, in no pain,
with no tubes, and looking out into the woods on a sunny day with birds
flitting through the trees." He goes on to say that "a memorial service will
be held at some point in the future, probably after classes resume at the
University of Kansas in mid-August: I will send details on this when they
are available. Misty would undoubtedly appreciate whatever charitable
contributions you might want to make in her memory, but had particular
interest in the "Ad Mundum" ("to the world") fund at her undergraduate alma
mater, Earlham College ( http://www.earlham.edu/).
This is an endowment that we established a number of years ago to provide
need-based supplemental funding to undergraduates doing study abroad.
Earlham's contributions website

https://www.applyweb.com/public/contribute?s=EARLHAMC
could presumably be
used for this.

You can find more news at the KU news release on Misty's death is at

http://www.news.ku.edu/2006/june/19/gerner.shtml or the local paper also did
a nice story at
<http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2006/jun/20/mideast_expert_dies_cancer/?ku_new
s>
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2006/jun/20/mideast_expert_dies_cancer/?ku_news
.

We -- WCIS -- will be sponsoring a roundtable in Misty's honor in Chicago...
so let me know your ideas or feel free to volunteer..

Vicki

ISA 2007 Communications

2006-04-01T07:16:00.000-05:00

If you would like to tell people about, or put together, a potential panel, use the comment feature on this message. I have "commented" as an example.

ISA 2007 Call for Papers, Feminist Theory Section

2006-04-01T07:14:00.000-05:00

Feminist Theory and Gender Studies Section

Call for Papers, ISA 2007

“Politics, Policy, and Responsible Scholarship”

Submission Deadline: June 1, 2006

Suggested Deadline: May 1, 2006

The 2007 ISA Call for Papers emphasizes a number of intellectual priorities that the scholarship of our section has exemplified throughout its history. Questions of responsibility for scholarship have been central to the IR feminist project (and the feminist project in general) since its inception. As such, the Feminist Theory and Gender Studies section is uniquely poised to take advantage of this year’s theme. The theme, “Politics, Policy, and Responsible Scholarship,” provides inspiration for our section both to continue important conversations that we have been having and to push the boundaries of our current scholarly interests. We urge colleagues new to ISA to create panels inspired by the theme for FTGS and to use your section colleagues to create panels to submit to the “THEME” (see “Resources and Rules” below).

What insights do gendered lenses provide for responsible scholarship? What types of knowledge should we be presenting to our students and our colleagues? What do the words that we utter in the classroom and in conference panels mean? What are the politics of our knowledge, inside and outside of academia? How has our work addressed the issue of responsibility for scholarship in the past? What new directions would better our understanding of our position as scholars in a world where, as Cynthia Enloe tells us, “the international is personal, and the personal is international”? What are the impacts of our work on ourselves, our departments, our social networks, our communities, and our world? What is our moral responsibility for those impacts?

The convention theme is unique because it at provides an opportunity to share feminists’ fundamental concern with moral responsibility for the content of theorists’ scholarship with the rest of ISA. At the same time, the theme challenges us to push the work of feminist theory further into the realm of policy, for example, to showcase recent work on gender mainstreaming has demonstrated the relevance of feminist theory to policy. But the Conference theme poses a new challenge to us as well. Though it is not stated explicitly, the challenge could be worded something like this: what would we do with the policies that we critique, were we put in a position of influence? Given that, how do we get there?

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, nationalism, terrorism, interstate and intrastate conflict, and post-conflict societies. Questions that can be addressed include:

What does knowledge mean? What does it mean to be accountable for our knowledge? What are the politics of the dissemination of that knowledge? What impact do book publishers’ and journal editors’ choices about publications have on the world? How do our hiring practices reflect our knowledge? What, if any, activism is there in teaching?

Feminists often characterize themselves as scholars and activists. What are the constitutive properties of a scholar-activist? What commitments do scholar-activists have, and what difference do they make in the world? Is the scope of the scholar-activist individual, local, or global?

What do we advocate about the policies that we study? What should happen to gender mainstreaming? In Iraq? In Afganistan? What does a gender perspective tell us about development policies? About the composition of the European Union? Is there a such thing as a feminist perspective on policy? As feminist international policy-making?

How can we dialogue with others working on similar issues? What is our relationship with NGOs? With activists? With governments? How can scholars of gender interact with policy-makers of gender? Should they?

Also, continuing a successful request from last year, we are interested in encouraging participation from scholars and practitioners who work in 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. Scholars unfamiliar with ISA or FTGS are encouraged to contact the FTGS program chair long before the deadline so that we can help connect them with scholars putting together panels on related themes (see “Resources and Rules” below).

Finally, we would like to suggest that the ISA Call for Papers creates space for non-traditional panels and roundtables, inviting participants from the policy sector, the media, or NGOs to engage in dialogue with IR theorists about the meanings of our knowledge. We suggest that you take the ISA Call for Papers not only to invite reflection about activism, but to invite that reflection as a form of activism in itself. In that, we encourage you to create new dialogues with ‘actors’ who may not be regular participants in the International Studies Association but whose participation might be interesting given the theme.

Rules and Resources

There are a number of rules and resources that we would like to underscore for your help in putting together panel and paper proposals. First, ftgss.blogspot.com has a thread called “ISA 2007 Communications” which is posted so that you can, in the comments section, get to know people who work on similar issue areas and compose panels. For example, I might post “Laura Sjoberg is working on strategic implications of feminism – does anyone have research interests that might compliment this on a panel”? You could then either choose to email me or post to the comments section of the blog.

Second, the earlier we get our papers and panels in, the better we fare on the program, and the easier your program chairs’ lives are. Though we understand if you absolutely cannot submit your proposal until June 1, we would like to suggest that you deceive yourself into thinking that the Program Submission Deadline is May 1. If we successfully cooperate with this earlier deadline, we will likely be able to put together more theme panels and to be more efficient in scheduling the panels and papers that we receive.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact your program chair, laura@laurasjoberg.com, or post to the FTGS blog.

We look forward to receiving your submissions,

Laura Sjoberg, Ph.D.

Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs

Women and Public Policy Program

Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government

79 John F. Kennedy Street

Cambridge, MA 01752

617.875.6653

laura@laurasjoberg.com

(note: email and telephone are the best ways to contact me; please do not mail correspondence)

Meeting Agenda

2006-03-20T21:48:00.000-05:00

FEMINIST THEORY AND GENDER STUDIES SECTION

BUSINESS MEETING AGENDA

ISA Annual Conference

San Diego, CA

FRIDAY, 24 March, 2006

Welcome from Section Chair

Reports

Section Chair Annual Report
Program Vice-Chair 2006 FTGS Report
Website Coordinator/Listserv Moderator

FTGSS Reception

financial/sponsorship
Student Paper Award (at the reception)

Eminent Scholar Panel honouring Jane Parpart

Election of FTGSS Officers 2006-08

Nominating Committee Chair’s Summary of Candidates’ Slate
Nominees introduction
Election
Introduction of incoming Section Chair & Vice/Program Chair: Jane Parpart and Rekha Pande

Other Business

Close

Nominations thus far

2006-03-16T22:14:00.000-05:00

2008 Section Chair: Brooke Ackerly

Nominator: Laura Parisi,

Seconders: Jacqui True, Lisa Prugl, Ann Tickner

Programme Chair 2008: Gunhild Hoogensen
Nominated by Marianne Franklin
Seconders: Lily Ling and Gillian Youngs

Member at Large (and Website Coordinator) 2006-2008: Laura Sjoberg
Nominator: Marianne Franklin
Seconders: Lily Ling and Gillian Youngs

Member at Large 2006-2008: Caron Gentry

Nominator: Laura Sjoberg

Seconders: Gunhild Hoogensen and ?

Member at Large 2006-2008: Bina D'Costa

Nominator: Catia C. Confortini

Seconders: Brooke Ackerly and Laura Parisi

Student Representative 2006-2008: Kirsti Stuvøy

Nominator: Gunhild Hoogensen

Seconders: Laura Sjoberg and Marianne Franklin

Student Representative 2006-2008: Sonalini Sapra

Nominator: Catia C. Confortini

Seconders: Brooke Ackerly and Laura Sjoberg

Section Chair:

Brooke A. Ackerly (Ph.D. Stanford University) is Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Vanderbilt University. Her research interests include democratic theory, cross-cultural human rights theory, feminist theory, social criticism, and feminist methodologies and methods. She integrates into her theoretical work empirical research on human rights, credit programs, and women’s activism transnationally.

Her feminist theory is informed by critical, queer, post-colonial, post-modern, and cross-cultural critical perspectives.

Her publications include Political Theory and Feminist Social Criticism (Cambridge University Press, 2000), “Women’s Human Rights Activists as Cross-Cultural Theorists,” International Journal of Feminist Politics (2001), and “Is Liberal Democracy the Only Way? Confucianism and Democracy” Political Theory (2005). Feminist Methodologies for International Relations edited with Jacqui True and Maria Stern is forthcoming in May 2006. Her current major project is tentatively titled, Universal Human Rights in a World of Difference.

Program Chair: Dr Gunhild Hoogensen is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Tromsø, Norway. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science specializing in International Relations and Comparative Politics from the University of Alberta, Canada. Her main research interest is the application of the human security concept, informed by gender and indigenous perspectives, to the Arctic context. Dr. Hoogensen leads the "Human Security in the Arctic" project along with her Norwegian and Canadian colleagues Dr. Dawn Bazely (York University), Dr. David Malcolm (Arctic Energy Alliance) and Dr. Geir Wing Gabrielsen (Norwegian Polar Institute). The project is currently investigating the impacts of oil and gas development on Arctic peoples (indigenous and non-indigenous) through the concept of human security. The project is multidisciplinary, including political science, geography, biology, ecotoxicology and engineering. Her other current research investigates relations of security, the applicability of human security to terrorist networks, and a book co-authored with Dr. Bruce Solheim on women world leaders (forthcoming, Praeger publishers). Her book International Relations, Security, and Jeremy Bentham (Routledge) was released July 2005, with other articles most recently appearing in Security Dialogue, Canadian Foreign Policy, and International Studies Review.

Member-at-large:

Laura Sjoberg (laura_sjoberg@ksg.harvard.edu) (Ph.D., International Relations, University of Southern California; JD candidate, Boston College) is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow with the Women and Public Policy Program and the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. She has taught at the University of Southern California, Brandeis University, and Merrimack College. Her book, Gender, Justice, and the Wars in Iraq, is forthcoming in June of 2006. She also has upcoming articles in the International Feminist Journal of Politics and International Politics. In her spare time, she is a 2nd year law student, runs a non-profit in the Boston Public Schools, and serves as your FTGSS webmaster/list coordinator).

Caron Gentry (bio forthcoming)

Bina D'Costa (bina.dcosta@anu.edu.au)

* Dr Bina D'Costa* (MA in International Relations, Dhaka University, Bangladesh; MA in International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame, US; PhD in International Relations and Political Science, the Australian National University, Australia) is the Convenor of the Bachelors in Security Analysis Program with the Faculty of Asian Studies, the Australian National University (ANU), Canberra. She was previously the post-doctoral research fellow on poverty, inequality and development in post-conflict states, at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand and the John Vincent Fellow in the Department of International Relations of the Research School of Asian and Pacific Studies at the ANU, where she earned her PhD in 2003.

She has taught in the Departments of International Relations and Women's Studies at the ANU and Australian Defence Force Academy, University of New South Wales.

Bina is working with several NGOs in Bangladesh and India on historical injustices, truth and memory in relation to the strategies of civil society in demanding justice when there is a hostile government in power. This action-oriented research informs her book project titled /'Burden' of the State: Gendering War Crimes and National Identity Politics in Postcolonial South Asia/. She is working on two projects titled 'Disappeared Generation: Children conceived through violent conflict and national identity in the Indian Subcontinent' and 'Faith-based NGOs, the Development Agenda and the Politics of Secularism in Bangladesh' .

Student rep: Sonalini Sapra (Sonalini.k.sapra@vanderbilt.edu)

Sonalini Sapra is a second year graduate student in the Political Science Department at Vanderbilt University. Her research interests include Social Movements, Caste Politics, Politics of Group Representation, Human Rights, Deliberative Democracy and Women and Leadership. Sapra's current research focuses on changing notions of transnational citizenship, taking at is starting point an analysis of transnational social movements, advocacy networks, and civil society, and examining the role played and strategies employed by these networks in the pursuit of women’s equality and national citizenship. Her next research project will look at state responses to claims by women and ethnic minorities in South Asia in an attempt to explain the wide divergence in practices of political representation between identity categories.

Angela McCracken

PhD Student
School of International Relations
3518 Trousdale Parkway, VKC 330
Los Angeles, CA 90089-0043
Phone: (323) 251-2398
Email: angela@usc.edu

I am a fourth year PhD student in International Relations with a concentration in Culture, Gender and Global Society. My academic interests are in international theory, gender, race, feminisms, globalization, body politics, and Latin America. I expect to go into the field shortly and graduate in June 2008. I have been either a research assistant or a teaching assistant for the last 5 years. Service work is very important to me, and during graduate school I have held positions on the board of our graduate student association, been a delegate to the graduate student senate, and been a volunteer programmer on a feminist radio show. Currently, I am an active member of the Graduate Students of Color Network at USC, and I have recently co-organized a day-long workshop on research funding, for graduate students in the social sciences. I would be pleased to serve as a student representative to the FTGSS, especially since I recently read all of the past news letters and came to realize what an achievement it has been to establish a thriving section that graduate students like myself can take for granted. I would be particularly interested in fostering support for mentorship within FTGSS.

Nominated by: Catia Confortini, seconded by Ann Tickner, Abigail Ruane, Christina Gray

Officer Elections

2006-02-20T17:51:00.000-05:00

Feminist Theory and Gender Studies Section

Call for nominations - 2006

The following positions are open for nomination:

2007 Section Chair (one position)
2007 Programme/Vice-Chair (one position)
Members-at-Large: 2006-08 (three positions)
2006 Student Representative (one position)

Requirements and responsibilities:

Nominees and those elected to office must be willing and able to partake in email communications, fund-raising, and other activities pertaining to activities of the FTGSS section in the year prior to each annual conference. They must also be a registered (i.e. paid-up) FTGSS member. If nominees are unsure of their status in FTGSS (i.e: paid or not), please contact ISA directly - they can provide you with this information.

Note for nominators:

Each nomination needs to include two seconders to the nomination. The lead nominator must include their name, affiliation and email to the nomination. Please send nominations, information about nominators (and names of two seconders), and nominee’s biographical notes to one of the following members of the FTGSS nominating committee:

Gunhild Hoogensen (chair) - gunhildh@sv.uit.no

Laura Sjoberg – laura_sjoberg@ksg.harvard.edu

Laura Parisi - lparisi@uvic.ca

Note for nominees:

All nominees are requested to send a brief bio to the FTGSS nominating committee (200 words max). The bios will be placed on the website prior to the election for members to become familiar with the nominees. Full contact info (name, affiliation, email, home contact) should also be supplied for each nominee (for the files of the nominating committee).

More Information:

Members are welcome to refer to the FTGSS constitution regarding the election of officers. http://www.isanet.org/sections/ftgs/constitution.html. Articles V and VI name the positions to be filled, as well as the importance of graduate student representation and ensuring a reasonable regional/ geographic representation across the executive.

Elections:

In the case of there being only one nominee per position, their appointment will be confirmed by a general ballot at the FTGSS Annual General Meeting. In the case of there being more the one nominee per position, the election of officers will take place at the FTGSS AGM. The FTGSS AGM will be on Friday, 24 March, at the ISA conference centre in San Diego. For details on the exact time and place for the AGM, please consult the ISA Conference Program.

Conference

2006-01-10T21:21:00.000-05:00

*** APOLOGIES FOR CROSS-POSTING - PLEASE CIRCULATE WIDELY***

The Space Between: Theorising Gender in IR and IPE

"There is fiction in the space between
The lines on your page of memories
Write it down but it doesn't mean
You're not just telling stories"
(Tracy Chapman 2000)

Opening Address: V. Spike Peterson
Conversations: Terrell Carver and Christine Sylvester
Keynote: Marysia Zalewski

1st-2nd June 2006

University of Bristol, UK

What does it currently mean to research gender - or to conduct gendered
research? What inspires interest in the practices and politics of gender?
How do our research and citational practices impact on our political and
intellectual identities? What negotiations inform the translation of
gendered research into policy practice? This conference, sponsored by the
BISA Gendering International Relations Working Group and the International
Political Economy Group, aims to bring together scholars from the fields of
International Relations, International Political Economy and Security and
Development in order to reflect on these questions and on the presence and
absence of gender in their work.
It's been almost a decade since J. Ann Ticker published 'You Just Don't
Understand?' in International Studies Quarterly. Since then, feminist
scholarship in the disciplines of International Relations, Peace and
Security Studies, Development and International Political Economy has
continued to challenge the boundaries of these disciplines, drawing
attention to gender as inherent in both the organisational logic and the
objects of study of all aspects of international politics.
Yet there is limited engagement between feminist and non-feminist critical
work within these disciplines. While interdisciplinary scholarship is
becoming increasingly mainstreamed, a persistent poverty animates the
conversation between critical scholars regarding gendered work. We welcome
submissions from those who work on gender in these subject areas, but also
from scholars who might not undertake gendered critiques in their work but
nonetheless would be interested in engaging in debate with notable feminist
scholars.
Numbers are limited, so please respond to this call as promptly as
possible. Participants who do not intend to present papers are also
encouraged to attend the conference, and are asked to register their
interest with the conference organizer, Laura Shepherd, as soon as
possible. If you would be interested in acting as a discussant or chair,
please signal this in the initial e-mail. Please e-mail abstracts of no
more than 200 words accompanied by full contact details to Laura Shepherd
( Laura.Shepherd@bristol.ac.uk) by 1st March 2006. Registration details will
be mailed out the following week.

Job Announcement

2005-10-13T16:55:00.000-04:00

"She gives back: Women and diaspora philanthropy"

Mama Cash is looking for 4 freelance researchers

Mama Cash is an international women's fund based in Amsterdam which supports groundbreaking and innovative projects conceived by women for women all over the world. Mama Cash works globally, and supports women's groups in Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Since 1983, Mama Cash has supported over 5000 women's groups with more than 20 million Euro. The grants she makes go towards securing the human rights of women and ensuring that women have access to Bodily Integrity; Economic Justice; Peace and Security; Arts, Culture and Media; and Agency and Participation. This way, Mama Cash invests in the future of women worldwide.

In the coming years, Mama Cash will invest more actively in allying with old and new philanthropic communities and promote the rights of women within those. In 2005-2006 this investment takes the shape of the project "She gives Back: Women and diaspora philanthropy".

"She gives Back" has the aim to generate knowledge and insight about women and diaspora philanthropy, looking at the phenomenon of remittances from a gender and ethnicity perspective with a focus on the role of women in the practice of 'giving back'; and to share this knowledge with stakeholders and the general public. Activities include research (Q4 2005 and Q1 2006); a researchers meeting (29-30 November 2005); a public event (29 November); and a publication (mid 2006).

The research takes place in five European countries: the Netherlands; United Kingdom; Germany; Italy; and France. In each of the countries (except for the Netherlands, where a researcher has already started), we are looking for:

A goal oriented (junior) researcher who has affinity with the vision and mission of Mama Cash and preferably has knowledge and experience in the field of diaspora philanthropy. You will be part of an international team of 5 researchers with the task to carry out a comparative research in the Netherlands; United Kingdom; Germany; Italy; and France,

with the following components:

A. Facts and figures on remittances in the concerned country (3-4 pages based on literature). The aim of part A is to offer a context against which background the research takes place.

B. A mapping of Gendered Diaspora Philanthropy (gendered DP) in the country concerned through interviews and literature (14-18 pages). Part B is the central part of the research. You will define the concepts involved and address the following questions: What is women's role in diaspora philanthropy? Which are their motivations and their aims in 'giving back'? What are the spaces available, and what are their strategies? Attention will be paid to ways of giving (individual/organised); differences between generations; differences between different migrant communities; the specificities of women's patterns of giving.

C. Through interviews and written sources, 2 or 3 examples of 'good practices': descriptions of organised or individual gendered DP that is innovative and effective.

Your end product is a publishable research paper (in English) of 20-28 pages (parts A, B and C, excluding bibliography and resource list) which will form part of an international publication, together with the other country-based research papers.

You will participate in a researchers meeting (29-30 November 2005) and a public event (29 November 2005) in Amsterdam. The outcomes of these meetings you will use as input for your research.

We are looking for:
You have an MA in the field of Social Sciences, Humanities or (Social) Economics and a good understanding of the concepts of gender, ethnicity and transnationalism. You have experience in working from an intersectional perspective combining gender and ethnicity. Preferably you have experience in doing socially relevant and/or action-oriented research, and/or research around remittances.

You have a relevant network in the country you will work on as well as internationally. You have an analytical view, and are experienced in writing reports of your research findings in a clear and accessible way.

You can conduct research; find resources; and write in a fast way. Given the international character of the project, both your English as well as the language of the country you are conducting the research in, are good in speaking and writing. You can work independently and know how to operate efficiently in a project team. You are responsible in keeping with the timeline and agreements made, you communicate easily with others, and can deal with deadlines.

Your contacts:
Your contact persons within Mama Cash are Nancy Jouwe (general project coordinator) and Esther Vonk (project research coordinator).

We offer:
You will be hired as a freelance researcher and work 10 to 20 days on the project and we offer a minimum of € 3.200 to a maximum of € 4.000 (including VAT, excluding travel expenses), depending on your experience. You will work from home and conduct interviews and consult libraries in the country you conduct the research in.

You will participate in a researchers meeting in Amsterdam on 29 and 30 November 2005. Further communication with your co-researchers and Mama Cash will happen through e-mail and telephone.

Start date is mid November 2005; deadline for the final version of your research paper is March 1st 2006. The publication is due mid 2006.

Interested?
Do you have affinity with the vision and mission of Mama Cash and are you the researcher that we are looking for? Please send your letter and CV to:

info@mamacash.nl
under the subject 'Gendered Diaspora Philanthropy researcher'.
The deadline for applying is October 27th.
Telephone interviews will take place in the first week of November.

More information about Mama Cash can be found on our website:
www.mamacash.nl.
Here you can also download our latest annual report.

For more information about the project, call + 31 20 689 36 34 and ask
for Esther Vonk or Nancy Jouwe.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

*********************************************
Nederlandse Onderzoekschool Vrouwenstudies
Netherlands Research School of Women's Studies
Muntstraat 2A, 3512 EV UTRECHT, The Netherlands
Tel: +31 (0) 30 - 253 6001
Fax: +31 (0) 30 - 253 6134
nov@let.uu.nl --- www.let.uu.nl/nov

_______________________________________________
Gender mailing list
Gender@lists.leeds.ac.uk
http://lists.leeds.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/gender

Thirteenth Annual York Centre for International and Security Studies

2005-10-10T10:52:00.000-04:00

Thirteenth Annual York Centre for International and Security Studies
Conference

Exceptional Measures for Exceptional Times: The State of Security Post 9/11
2-3 February 2006

Call for Papers

Purportedly, the events of 9/11 have altered the international security
environment, demanding exceptional measures that tighten borders, enable
indefinite detention, and justify preventive warfare. Forms of sovereign and
executive authority have been resurrected, creating a state of exception by
suspending normal rules and laws that are argued to be in the interests of
national and international security. These developments raise questions
about
the appropriate balance between security, freedom, and democracy.  Some
scholars and activists argue that recent measures have gone too far, and
that
the costs to freedom and democracy are too high. Others argue that security
measures are needed to protect this very freedom. This conference invites
papers that investigate the policy perspectives and discursive frames that
inform how we think about the relationship between security and freedom in
the
post 9/11 era. Of particular interest are papers that consider how ideas of
the
exception get articulated in security discourses and practices and the role
that
notions of dangerousness and foreignness play in the construction of
internal
and external enemies. How do articulations of danger play on raced, sexed,
and
classed bodies? On what grounds are states of exception and exceptional
responses justified? What are the ethical and political implications of
suspending normal rules? What dilemmas do new security practices present for
the practitioners and theorists who study the politics of security? How are
the
scholarly traditions of Security Studies and International Relations
sustained
by, and invested in, exceptional measures such as war and conflict?

Reflecting a desire for open, diverse, and vibrant exchange, we strongly
encourage papers that draw on a broad range of theoretical commitments
including Critical Theory, Post-structuralism, Feminism(s),
Post-colonialism,
Anti-Racism, Queer Theory, Marxism, Gramscian, Realism, Liberalism, and
Green
Theory. Interdisciplinary perspectives and presentations grounded outside of
International Relations are strongly encouraged.

Potential Topic Areas:
. Redefinitions of geopolitical space, borders and sovereignty
. Biopolitics
. Political economy of conflict and war
. The politics of xenophobia - racial targeting, indefinite detention,
deportation and expulsion
. Representations of the post 9/11 era
. Weapons proliferation
. Canadian foreign and defence policy and Canada's International
Policy Review
. Defence and the 'homeland'
. Anti-terrorism and immigration law
. Imperialism, empire and foreign policy
. Governance and 'others'
. Intervention - humanitarian or otherwise
. Constructions of foreignness, hetero-normativity, masculinity, and
femininity
. New technologies and targets of security
. Ethics and responsibility

The deadline for applications is Friday, 14 October 2005.  Please submit an
abstract of 250 words to Tina Managhan managhan@yorku.ca and Colleen Bell
cbell@yorku.ca.

Announcing the student paper award!

2005-10-03T11:34:00.000-04:00

ISA 2006

Feminist Theory and Gender Studies Section -

Student Paper Award 2006

Next year at ISA 2006 in San Diego, the winner of the 2006 Student Paper Award will be announced. Submissions for this award are now open. Students or their teachers are welcome to submit papers. Please see below for the submission deadline, criteria for participation, where and how to submit, names of this year’s Awards Committee.

Please note that the deadline is 30 November, 2005

<>Important dates <>
1) Announcement of the Winner at the ISA: FTGS Reception: Friday, March 24 2006 <>
2) Submission of Papers: no later than November 30, 2005 (no exceptions)

Submission Criteria

<>1) A registered (paid up) FTGSS member currently doing Masters-level or PhD research at
time of submission
2) Paper has to have been written since the last ISA (March 1, 2004)
3) Paper has to show

o a clear contribution to the FTGSS mission, laid down in the Charter

o original theoretical and/or empirical content

o a high enough quality (whatever the theoretical or empirical framework)

4) Papers that relate to the ISA 2006 Conference theme are also encouraged

How to Submit

<>Please send the paper

1) either as a WORD (or compatible) document to Marianne Franklin, University for Humanistics, The Netherlands, at

<>2) or as hardcopy (if necessary) to Marianne Franklin, University of Humanistics, Postbus 797,
3500 AT Utrecht, The Netherlands ; tel: #31 30 2390-139 ; fax: #31 30 2340-738 ;
Email: M.I.Franklin@uvh.nl

FTGS Awards Committee: 2005-2006<>
Anna Agathangelou, York University, Toronto, Canada ; Geeta Chowdhry, Northern Arizona University, USA ; Gunhild Hoogensen, University of Tromsø, Norway ; Marianne Franklin, University for Humanistics, The Netherlands

ISA seeks new editor for International Studies Review; Contact Ann Tickner

2005-05-20T22:38:00.000-04:00

Dear FTGSS members,

Ann Tickner sends us this note:

You will note in the ISA Newlsetter that there is a call for new editors for the International STudies REview. If you can think of any women/FTGS people (probably would need to be US based) let me know. It requires quite a bit of institutional support so editor(s) has to be housed at a university that could provide that. Look at the call on the ISA website for more details.

The call from the ISA webpage is copied below:

International Studies Review Seeks New Editor

The Publications Committee of the International Studies Association will make a recommendation to the ISA Governing Council regarding the assignment of editorial duties for the International Studies Review at the 2006 annual meeting (a mission statement for the journal can be accessed at www.isanet.org/pubisa.html#isr). New editorial appointments will be approved at that meeting for editor(s) who will serve for a five year term beginning January 1, 2008. (It is assumed that there will be transitional duties during 2007). ISA will provide a subvention to the Editor(s) of approximately $30,000 annually to support the editorial project. Questions about the process of selecting the editor(s), or the editorial duties involved, may be addressed to the Chair of the Publications Committee, James Lee Ray, at james.l.ray@vanderbilt.edu, or (615) 322-6235. Applications from individuals or editorial teams will be considered. Applications should be submitted to James Lee Ray, ISA Publications Committee Chair, Department of Political Science, P.O. Box 8263, Station B, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37235. Applications should be received no later than September 30, 2005, although applications will be accepted until an appointment is recommended by the committee. Earlier applications are encouraged, and will be evaluated as they arrive. Women and minority candidates are strongly encouraged to apply. ISA is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer.

Dr. Tickner's email address is tickner@usc.edu

Job announcement!

2005-05-10T15:19:00.000-04:00

Associate Director of Women’s and Gender Studies

Vanderbilt University

Vanderbilt University’s interdisciplinary Women’s and Gender Studies Program seeks a Senior Lecturer who will also be appointed as Associate Director in the program for a renewable three-year contract, beginning in the 2006-2007 academic year. The position includes administrative and teaching duties, including five courses per academic year. As well as providing general support and guidance to the program director, the Associate Director is responsible for coordinating the speaker series, editing the newsletter, advising and mentoring students, and coordinating the internship program.

The ideal candidate will hold a degree in Women’s and/or Gender Studies or a related discipline; ABDs are welcome to apply, Ph.D. required no later than July 1, 2006. Demonstrated experience teaching women’s and/or gender studies courses and some administrative experience preferred. Although this is not a tenure-track position, we are interested in candidates with active research agendas. While any area of scholarship related to women’s and gender studies is welcome, we are in particular need of faculty in the area of global feminism, broadly conceived.

The Women’s and Gender Studies Program is both the public face and nexus of feminist and gender scholarship at Vanderbilt University, and as such serves multiple functions. It is staffed by a Director, an Associate Director, a Program Assistant, and student workers. In addition, Women’s and Gender Studies is guided by a Steering Committee appointed by the Director and also benefits from the advice, support, and research and teaching activities of 75 affiliated faculty members drawn from across campus, as well as significant support from the university administration.

Please forward letter of application, curriculum vitae, statement of teaching philosophy, sample syllabus, teaching evaluations if available, and contact information for three references to:

Monica J. Casper, Director

Women’s and Gender Studies Program

VU Station B, #350086

2301 Vanderbilt Place

Nashville, TN 37235

Direct inquiries to monica.casper@vanderbilt.edu; please do not telephone the program.

For additional information, visit our website at www.vanderbilt.edu/womens-studies

Review of Applications begins August 1, 2005 and continues until the position is filled.

PLEASE NOTE that Dr. Casper will be available for informal discussions/interviews at the NWSA Conference in Orlando. If you wish to meet with her there, send an email to the above address before June 1, 2005.

Welcome to the FTGSS blog!

2005-04-29T14:55:00.000-04:00

The FTGSS (Feminist Theory and Gender Studies Section) of the International Studies Association (ISA) has become convinced that its website should not be a place for sterile updates and content, but an interactive home for the furtherance of Feminist scholarship in international politics and global governance. We envision researchers using this site to post and learn about academic opportunities, to form research cooperatives, to announce conferences, and to discuss issues of importance to their research programmes. It is to that end that we have established the "FTGSS blog." For those of you who are not familiar with "blogging" - it is the new generation of "message boards" and "bulletin boards" - internet interactive communication.

This is a [self-promoting] paragraph from Blogger describing what a "blog" is - I post it because we envision ours achieving all of Blogger's communicative hopes.

A blog is a personal diary. A daily pulpit. A collaborative space. A political soapbox. A breaking-news outlet. A collection of links. Your own private thoughts. Memos to the world. Your blog is whatever you want it to be. There are millions of them, in all shapes and sizes, and there are no real rules. In simple terms, a blog is a web site, where you write stuff on an ongoing basis. New stuff shows up at the top, so your visitors can read what's new. Then they comment on it or link to it or email you. Or not. Since Blogger was launched, almost five years ago, blogs have reshaped the web, impacted politics, shaken up journalism, and enabled millions of people to have a voice and connect with others. And we're pretty sure the whole deal is just getting started.

So, here's how it works - we will post updates on issues of FTGSS interest, including conferences, research, accomplishments, questions, international events, etc. You can respond to to posts, suggest topics, and dialogue on important issues to the FTGSS community. If we all take a few minutes a week to let the rest of the community know what is going on in our lives and our research, we will be able to communicate effectively. We hope that, through this blog and other tools, we will be able to make FTGSS a truly interactive community supporting feminist scholarship.

If you arrived here through the ISA website, the FTGSS website, or the FTGSS mailing list, welcome, you must have come on purpose! If you did not come on purpose, do not worry, you are still welcome. For more about our organization, see www.isanet.org/sections/ftgs/ for more information about our organization. With that, let the "blogging" begin!

Call for papers

2005-04-29T14:17:00.000-04:00

Feminist Theory and Gender Studies Section
Call for Papers for the 2006 ISA Annual Conference, San Diego, USA. March 2006

2006 Conference Theme: The North-South Divide and International Studies
Deadline for Panel Submissions: June 1^st , 2005

While the North-South divide may be a new area of inquiry for many of our colleagues, feminists have been concerned with it for a long time and we bring to the 2006 ISA conference theme our gendered sensitivities to race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic inequalities.

What can we learn about the questions of international relations and global politics by being attentive to the South-North divide? What can feminist theory and gender studies provide us for problematizing, understanding, bridging, or breaking down that divide? What theoretical, methodological, and empirical challenges have we faced? How have we addressed these and what new viewpoints can we bring to this discussion? What does awareness of the divides between the Global North and Global South bring to our understandings of divides within the North and within the South.

We invite panels and individual papers from the full range of current issue-areas in international studies; globalization, democratization, human rights, security, gender mainstreaming, disciplinary and physical borders, indigenous issues, nationalism, terrorism, interstate and intrastate conflict, and post-conflict societies. Questions that can be addressed include:

How and where is further study of such issue-areas enriched by various forms of feminist approaches (empirical, (post-)structuralist, post-positivist, postmodern) that are attentive to the gendered, race/ethnic, class/socioeconomic differences in power relations within, between, and among more affluent and lesser developed parts of the world? How can these questions be reframed by paying attention to locating the ''South" within the North?

What advantages or disadvantages are there by framing our inquiries in terms of a North-South divide? Is this a geographical divide? Does a focus on North and South require a focus on a macro-level IR questions? How is the divide evidenced or allayed in everyday life, the workplace, in intergovernmental institutions? Does the dichotomy constrain our thinking and research? Various streams of Feminist and Gender Studies have consistently sought to challenge the reification of such dichotomies. How can we study the divides between North and South without contributing to further polarizations and more 'othering' ? What sorts of heuristics, models, interpretations and respective empirical research methods can be further developed for dealing with these concerns in IR?

How do South-North relationships reveal themselves in research scenarios? Where can feminist theory and gender studies continue to develop inclusive research programs, new knowledge about silenced others, or enhance knowledge through reflexive forms of knowledge?

How does a focus on this "North-South Divide" contribute to feminist IR as both a distinct field and an interdisciplinary undertaking in IR more broadly?

How can FTGS panels address the ongoing issue of voice, positionality, race, ethnicity and demographic under-representation; both in policy-making and academic circles?

Finally, 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.

Any more questions? Please feel free to contact the FTGS Program Chair: Brooke Ackerly at (brooke.ackerly@vanderbilt.edu) or the FTGS Chair, Marianne Franklin at (M.I.Franklin@uvh.nl).

Anyone wishing to serve as discussant and chair can contact program co-chair: Laura Parisi (lparisi@uvic.ca) with their areas of expertise and current interests.

Finally, travel grants are available and the funds for these have been increased. It is strongly advised that you to apply now for travel support and not wait for acceptance on the program. Details are available at www.isanet.org.

The deadline for submissions is June 1. A link to the online submission form will be posted at http://www.isanet.org/sandiego/.