Intersectionality and International Relations: Feminist and Queer Resistance to the Canon

This course on feminist methodologies is concerned with the concept of intersectionality as a framework of analysis that can tell us something about multiple exclusions and the workings of power. The course traces genealogies of intersectionality in International Relations, particularly the contributions made by "Third World women," postcolonial, transnational, and Islamic feminists to the field of IR. It further introduces students to feminist and queer critiques of intersectionality and proposes various analytical approaches to deal with multiple dimensions of identity and essentialisms inherent to politicised identities; including concepts such as 'multidimensionality' (Hutchinson 2001), 'translocational positionality' (Anthias 2002) and what Nira Yuval-Davis (2006) refers to as 'positional and discursive intersectionality'. Students review key texts on intersectionality with a focus on how it has been applied in the field of Political Science/IR. This includes debates about identity politics within academia and the implications of centring marginal voices in understanding power relations. Overall, participants are familiarised with methodological approaches to conducting feminist (field) research which recognise that positionalities are multiple and teaches them to look beyond social and historical structures and processes that lead to identity formation and instead to attend to the political process of how these identities are produced and what kind of community/collective they envision.

Semester:

Stufe:

MA

ETCS:

6

Fächer:

Internationale Beziehungen, Politikwissenschaft

Hochschultyp:

Universitäre Hochschulen (UH)