Call for proposals for the ISA Feminist Theory and Gender Studies (FTGS) section
programme.
The call for proposals for the next ISA is now live, and the submission deadline is June 1, 2023.
The title for the next ISA is “Putting Relationality at the Centre of International Studies.” So it is
time to start planning papers, roundtables, and panels. The conference is scheduled for 3-6 April
2024 and will be held in San Francisco (USA). All the details can be found here.
The ISA’s general call for proposals refers to the “(un)making of relationships of all kinds:
networks of formal and informal political actors, and the impact these networks have on
decision-making; diplomacy and statecraft within and beyond the institutions of global
governance; imperial impositions, patriarchal violence, and capitalist dispossession; and social
and community movements and how these interact and interconnect with, and contest and
challenge […] relations of humans with non-human animals, land, and waterways, relations of
value and care, and social relations of power and subjectification such as capital, race, religion,
sexuality, and gender.”
Unsurprisingly, the ISA convention theme perfectly aligns with FTGS’s mission and interests. We
see it not as a coincidence but as a result of the constant work that feminist activists,
practitioners, academics, researchers, creatives, and teachers have had in the (un/re)thinking,
(un/re)doing, and (re/de)construction of IR. Such work has led to the identification of open and
more subtle resistances and (re)creation of old and new, silent and voiced, creative, innovative
and/or more traditional ways of doing IR research. For decades, this work centered a broad body
of critical feminist methodological as well as conceptual, ontological, and epistemological
departure points, positioning(s), and ‘ways of doing’ knowledge differently and ‘becoming’ IR
scholars. The aim of this scholarship is to visualize, develop and bring to life emancipatory
knowledge(s) and practice(s) to challenge and dismantle the hierarchical and violating
dichotomies and binaries continually entrenched in International Relations and the study and
practice of international politics.
In addition to papers related to the general theme of the conference, the FTGS section invites
creative and traditional proposals (individual or collective papers/ panels/ roundtables) that
critically interrogate: i) IR/international politics and the myriad challenges facing the discipline
when viewed from feminist perspectives; ii) systems, actors, relations and privileges in the
IR/international politics discipline that are approached, questioned and undone within critical feminist
approaches.
Within such a broad exercise, we include questions such as, but are not limited to:
● How do critical feminist approaches challenge conventional ‘international relations’ thinking
and theorising?
● How are (or can) relational approaches be understood, built upon, critiqued and reimagined
by critical feminist research?
● How do feminist research, policy-making, and activism inform/contest/converse with each
other? What are the potentialities and challenges of centering critical feminist analysis in
these spaces?
● What critical feminist traditions (such as indigenous, decolonial, Black, queer, abolitionist,
Marxist, LGBTQ+, and intersectional) continue to be at the margins of the discipline?
How do they (or can they) (re)shape which and/or how knowledge, subjects and practices
are created, produced, and reproduced in IR?
● How do critical feminist positionings in IR approach care and social reproduction? How
do such understandings permeate IR/international politics? And, what struggles and
pushback to these insights do we grapple with/encounter?
These questions are by no means exhaustive. They are here to help spark your interest and inspire
you to participate. We encourage proposals that go beyond the questions enumerated above and
excitedly look forward to conversations that push the boundaries of traditional IR and are
creative!
All submissions will be made through the ISA website only. The ISA again accepts different
submissions and proposals (all the information here).
This upcoming year, we aim to co-sponsor panels with other ISA Sections to maximize our
presence and the participation of young, ECR, and feminist scholars and practitioners from other
marginalized communities and groups, such as Global South, broadly understood. Therefore,
please indicate section preferences (alongside FTGS as your first preference) if you have them
when submitting your proposals. It will likely enhance the possibility of being included in the
program and connections with other ISA sections.
If you have any questions, please contact the ISA 2024 FTGS Program Co-Chairs: Anwar
Mhajne (amhajne@stonehill.edu) and Itziar Mujika Chao (itziar.mujika@ehu.eus).
Gendering World Politics 