FTGS Call for Proposals for ISA 2024 San Francisco

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).

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Call for Nominations FTGS Eminent Scholar Award

Deadline: 5 May 2023

Nominations to: Dr Daniel Conway, University of Westminster, email: d.conway@westminster.ac.uk

About the Award

Feminist Theory and Gender Studies (FTGS) annually honours an eminent scholar in the International Relations sub-field of Feminist Theory and Gender Studies. Through their research, eminent scholars have made a significant impact and have pushed the boundaries of the sub-field. Many FTGS eminent scholars also have distinguished themselves through their commitment to the section and have advanced feminist scholarship through their teaching, mentoring and leadership. We strongly encourage nominations of scholars who come from under-represented and marginalised communities, epistemological and theoretical lineages as well as those situated within the global South. Details on previous award recipients can be found here.

Application Information Criteria

· Applicants have made significant impact and pushed the boundaries of FTGS, (the panel takes ‘performance’ relative to opportunity considerations seriously).

· Recipients must be/become a member of the ISA and FTGS at the time of award

Application Process

· Nominations should be submitted to the Chair of the Award Committee – Daniel Conway, d.conway@westminster.ac.uk

· Nominations should include a copy of the nominee’s CV and a letter of support. The letter should speak to the contributions made by the nominee and explain their importance.

· Nominations can be made by anyone in the profession or by the relevant community group.

· The deadline for nominations is 5 May 2023

· Scholars who have previously received the award are not eligible for nomination.

Selection Process

The winner will be selected by the FTGS Eminent Scholar Award Committee. The award will be presented at the Feminist Theory and Gender Studies (FTGS) Section business meeting during the ISA Annual Convention.

About FTGS

The Feminist Theory and Gender Studies section of the International Studies Association brings together scholars who apply feminist theory to International Relations or look at the field through a gender lens. For more information, visit: https://www.isanet.org/ISA/Sections/FTGS

Feminist Theory and Gender Studies Hybrid Meetings #ISA2023, Montreal

We know for many of you, and for a multitude of reasons, you are unable to make the conference in person.  We will miss you but as an exec we have been thinking about ways we can continue to build our inclusive community.  ISA does not support hybrid events during the conference and they do not have the facilities.  We have decided, where possible, to make our own events hybrid through the use of MSTeams.  Please do see the agenda for our key events below with the dedicated MSTeams link.  We encourage you all to come along and share in the knowledge exchange and continue to community build as a section.  We hope to see you there in person or through the screen.

Much love and solidarity,

FTGS Executive Committee 

Key Programme Events

Thursday 16 March 12.30-1.30 Business Meeting

Tidan A, Montreal Marriot Chateau 

MSTeams: Click here to join the meeting

We will be going over our annual report.  Please do let me know as committee chairs if you will be there in person to talk about the persons you awarded this year. 

Also, do let me know if there is a particular agenda item you’d like us as a section to discuss.

Agenda

  1. Introduction/Open Address (Amanda) 
  2. Welcoming of new executive committee (Amanda)
  3. Review of annual report
    1. Programme Review (Toni and Maria)
    2. Finances (Amanda)
    3. Communications (Keshab)
    4. Inclusion and Transformation (Amanda and Luah)
      1. Convention awards
      2. FTGS Global Voices 
  4. Awards
    1. Distinguished Scholar (Amanda)
    2. Book Prize (Anwar)
    3. Global South Feminist Scholar (Luah)
    4. Early Career and Engagement (Anwar)
    5. Teresa Teawai Award (Amanda)
  5. Nominations (Maria)
  1. BDS and Palestinian Academic Freedom at ISA (Andrew Delatolla or another representative)
  2. Any Other Business

Thursday 16 March 1.45-3.30 FTGS TownHall Militant Mentoring and Nurturing Communities of Care

Tidan A, Montreal Marriot Chateau 

MSTeams: Click here to join the meeting

Speakers: Megan Mackenzie, Toni Haastrup, Sara Motta, Yolande Bouka, Katharine Wright, Qais Munhazim and Chamindra Weerawardhana

The FTGS Townhall is conceived as an open, ethical and dialogical space for FTGS members and any other invited persons to share experiences, exchange knowledges and extend support, solidarity, listening and kinship to one another. According to the 2019 FTGS Report, the Townhall “gathering is an open meeting slot that feminist scholars at ISA use to discuss questions and concerns amongst its members.” This coming year we chose the theme: Militant mentoring and nurturing communities of care from within, against the beyond the ruins. The broader discussions are underpinned by the fact that we are currently surviving in the ruins of the not post-covid world and the ongoing anti-life logics and (ir)rationalities of our current systems of governance, education and economy. To some It feels like our infrastructures of learning, teaching, thinking, governing and social reproduction have broken down and it is unclear whether they can be fixed, or whether we want to do the labour of repair. For many Black, Indigenous, POC, queer and gender non-conforming colleagues and communities the academy and systems of governance and economy have always been a ruined and ruinous landscape and epistemological project that has been complicit in the denial of our (political) knowing-being difference. It is within this context, and learning together with our brilliant Black, Indigenous/POC and queer feminist scholars in and beyond the academy this upcoming townhall seeks to create a space to think about and nurture communities of care, infrastructures of resistance and ecologies of intimacy within, against and beyond the ruins. We aim to reimagine what mentoring and community building look like in- spite-of market extractivist logics, colonial patriarchal (ir)rationalities, toxic landscapes of social reproduction and anti-life governance strategies of abandonment. We begin with short interventions by our roundtable experts, before breaking into thematic groups and then returning as a collective to share and map ways forward.

Thursday 16 March 4-5.45 Distinguished Scholar Panel for Anna Agathangelou 

Tidan A, Montreal Marriot Chateau 

MSTeams: Click here to join the meeting

This year, we are very pleased to announce the winner of the 2023 Eminent Scholar Award is Professor Anna Agathangelou. Anna is a long-time member of the ISA, taking on significant leadership positions which include ISA, North-East, President, (2020-2021), and as ISA, North-East Program Chair, Elected Position (2018-2019). She has also served as an ISA Diversity Committee Member, Appointed Position (2014- 2017). Professor Agathangelou has likewise served as an ISA, North-East Section, Member of Organizing Committee (2010-2013), as ISA, North-East, Organizing Committee (2011-2013), and on the Nomination’s Committee, New Political Science Award Committees (2008-2009). Anna played a foundational role in creating a new cross disciplinary section at ISA, Science, Technology, Art in International Relations Section (STAIR).  

Professor Agathnagelou’s service to the FTGS Section is also noteworthy.  Anna has served on the FTGS Graduate Award Committee Member (2005-2006), as an FTGS Chair (2003-2004), as FTGS, Member of Coalition against Human Trafficking, Houston (2002-2006), as the FTGS Program Chair for the 43rd Annual ISA Convention, New Orleans, LA (March 24-27, 2000-2001), and as Executive Committee of FTGS (1994- 2000). She has also actively participated along with other key members to diversify the intellectual agenda of FTGS. While a chair and a program chair of FTGS, she not only ensured the inclusion of feminists from the Global South but also from the African continent. In all these leadership roles within ISA, Anna has shown a dedication and commitment to diversity and transforming around who and what knowledge is given space and included. She has worked to diversify ISA by inviting Black, Indigenous, and Women of the Global South to become members. She has used her leadership positions to increase the diversification of intellectual agendas in the discipline and the broader field of IR by focusing on postcolonial, feminist and science and technology perspectives.   

Thursday 16 March 7.30-8.30 FTGS and LGBTQA Caucus Reception 

Tidan A, Montreal Marriott Chateau         

Here we will be handing out award certificates to our awardees. We will try to livestream this so you can all watch through social media. 

FTGS Global Voices Seminar Series:

Shame, Honour and Gender: Tamil women in Devakottai Refugee camp (15 February 2023, 2 pm-3 pm UK time)

Registration: Link to the Registration

Chair: Dr Amanda Chisholm, Senior Lecturer in Security Studies / Researcher in Gender and Security at King’s College London 

Speaker: Sudha Rawat, Doctoral Candidate at Centre for International Politics, Organisation, and Disarmament (CIPOD), Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India

Discussant: Dr S. Irudaya Rajan, former Professor at the Centre for Development Studies (CDS), Kerala and current chair of the KNOMAD (The Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development)

Sudha Rawat explores the gendered experiences of Tamil women, focussing on the implication of socio-cultural norms related to notions of shame and honour.

She shares the personal stories of Sri Lankan Tamil women, who are living as refugee persons in Devakottai camp in the district of Sivaganga in the state of Tamil Nadu, India.

In the camp a clear gender division exists, as certain expectations and pressures are placed upon women to conform based on social norms and code of conduct. Women are generally subjected to very strict shame-honour norms and scrutiny, and any ‘deviation’ to it attracts social, cultural and moral consequences. These cultural notions are often reinforced with greater emphasis, especially on young girls who attain puberty. Regulating their sexuality, mobility and gendered relationship to safeguard their ‘purity’ is extremely common among the Tamil families here.

As women’s bodies, ideologically, heralded as repositories of honour and status of their families, male members of the camp enforce patriarchal surveillance on women’s behaviour, which is reinforced by systematic and often quite sever control of women’s social and especially sexual behavior including their mobility and access to certain space. These strict rules constrict women’s behaviour and make them perform according to the demands and wishes of the family and community members.

About the speaker 

Sudha Rawat

Sudha Rawat is Doctoral candidate at Centre for International Politics, Organisation, and Disarmament (CIPOD), Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.

Sudha’s identify herself as feminist geography and her research interests include gender and geography, gender based violence, wartime violence, research methodology and geopolitics.

Currently, she is working on her doctoral thesis titled ‘Honour, Shame and Body as a Site of conflict: Tamil Women in the Sri Lankan Civil War’. She has published two papers titled ‘Geopolitical inquiry into Climate and Resources: Why Syria undergoes Syrian War And ‘Politics of Language and Education: An Evaluation of Tamil Separatism in the Sri Lankan civil war’.

FTGS Global Voices Seminar Series

This event is part of the Feminist Theory and Gender Studies (FTGS) Global Voices Seminar Series. 

At this event

Amanda Chisholm

Amanda Chisholm

Senior Lecturer in Security Studies / Researcher in Gender and Security

FTGS Global Voices Seminar Series:

Bodily subjections, sovereignty as excess: investigating mechanisms of power in Brazilian society (25 January 2023, 2 pm-3 pm UK time)

Registration: Link to the Registration

Chair: Dr Amanda Chisholm, Senior Lecturer in Security Studies / Researcher in Gender and Security at King’s College London 

Speaker: Amanda Álvares Ferreira, PhD candidate at Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro and Associate Professor at Instituto Brasileiro de Ensino, Desenvolvimento e Pesquisa, in Brasília.

Discussant: Professor Anna M Agathangelou, Department of Politics, York University. Professor Agathangelou teaches in the areas of international relations and women and politics. 

FTSG seminar

Amanda Álvares Ferreira analyses the reproduction of the discourse on sovereignty in International Relations as a mechanism of fixation of bodily identity, in line with Judith Butler’s and Michel Foucault’s body of work.

By looking at the politics of death in the Brazilian context, Amanda Álvares Ferreira explores the intersections of race and gender as investments that demarcate abjection and constitute a specific necropolitical practice (the use of social and political power to dictate how some people may live and how some must die) that are characteristic and derivative of its colonisation process.

Most importantly, the contribution in this work is to provide an alternative focus on sovereignty as adopted by Lauren Berlant and Georges Bataille, where agency invested in a rational and decision-making subject is contested once sovereignty is proposed as product of a moment, and of excess. As an attempt to expand queer theory’s questioning of identity politics, Ferreira investigates how a bataillan perspective on sovereignty can help us understand the limits of agency in terms of identities; considering their normalisation as a constant reframing of individuation in the productive terms of modernity.

Amanda Álvares Ferreira

About the speaker 

Amanda Álvares Ferreira is PhD candidate at Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, and master by the same institution. She is currently working as Associate Professor at Instituto Brasileiro de Ensino, Desenvolvimento e Pesquisa, in Brasília.

Her current research is focused on queer and cuir theories and decolonial feminisms in IR, with a special focus in Latin America, and she has also conducted research on prostitution and sex trafficking in Brazil. Amanda has recently published an article at the journal Contexto Internacional, where she discussed lesbian activism in Brazil, at the occasion of the celebration of Stonewall’s 50th anniversary.

FTGS Global Voices Seminar Series

This event is part of the Feminist Theory and Gender Studies (FTGS) Global Voices Seminar Series. 

At this event

Amanda Chisholm

Amanda Chisholm

Senior Lecturer in Security Studies / Researcher in Gender and Security

Feminist Theory and Gender Studies Global Voices Seminar Series: Upcoming Events 2023 (Jan-Feb)

This series aims to bring a global conversation within and beyond our community members on issues pertaining to feminism, gender, and international relations. 

It is designed to showcase and amplify the expertise and research of Feminist Theory and Gender Studies (FTGS) members as well as foster a larger global community of those with like-minded interests.  We are particularly interested in representation from members of marginalised backgrounds, from the global South and who experience institutional barriers in disseminated their research. 

Link: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/events/series/feminist-theory-and-gender-studies-global-voices-seminar-series-1

FTGS Global Voices Seminar Series

25 Jan

Protest illustration

Bodily subjections, sovereignty as excess: investigating mechanisms of power in Brazilian society

25 January 2023, 14:00 to 15:00

Amanda Álvares Ferreira analyses the reproduction of the discourse on sovereignty in International…

15 Feb

Refugee Camp india_

Shame, Honour and Gender: Tamil women in Devakottai Refugee camp

15 February 2023, 14:00 to 15:00

Part of the Feminist Theory and Gender Studies (FTGS) Global Voices Seminar Series. Sudha Rawat…

22 Feb

Protest

Marta Vergara and the struggle for equal nationality rights at the League of Nations

22 February 2023, 14:00 to 15:00

Natali Cinelli Moreira will discuss how Global South actors have historically brought plural…

Call for FTGS 2023 Executive Committee Nominations

Feminist Theory and Gender Studies Executive Committee

Call for Nominations 2023

FTGS invites nominations for the following positions on the Executive Committee:

  • 2023-25 Section Chair (one position but open to job share) **two year position to replace current incoming chairs and to start as acting Chair in April 2023
  • 2023-26 Section Chair (one position but open to job share)
  • 2023-26 Program Chair (one position but open to job share)
  • 2023-25 Members-at-Large (three positions)
  • 2023-24 Graduate Student Member (two positions)
  • 2023-25 Communication Officer (one position but open to job share)

How to nominate:

  • Each nomination requires one lead nominator & two “seconders”, all members of ISA at the time of nomination.
  • Self-nominations will be accepted, but please provide names of seconders if possible
  • Nominees need not be members of ISA but must take out membership if elected.
  • Please nominate using the form below. EITHER the lead nominator OR the nominee may complete and submit this form.
  • Submit ONE form for each nomination, by email, to the chair of the nomination committee, Maria Tanyag, on maria.tanyag@anu.edu.au.  
  • The deadline for receipt of nominations is 20 December 2022.
  • Please nominate using the form by 20 December 2022.

Please provide the following information:

FOR THE 3 NOMINATORS

(1)        Name

(2)        Affiliation

(3)        Full contact details

 FOR THE NOMINEES

(1)        Position nominated for

(2)        Name, affiliation, & contact details

(3)        200-word bio for FTGS website

Responsibilities for each role: During their tenure, all FTGS Elected officials are required to take part in executive committee meetings at the annual ISA conventions, along with associated email communications and administrative activities. The tasks of the program chair, the section chair, and member-at-large also include the following role-specific responsibilities:

SECTION CHAIR (1-year term officially, effectively 3 years as incoming & outgoing too)

  • Maintain communication with ISA
  • Fundraise for section reception
  • Populate & advise standing committees
  • Respond to section initiatives
  • Respond to ISA initiatives
  • Initiate FTGS policy and projects
  • Maintain records of all FTGS business
  • Preside at annual business meeting
  • Convene FTGS executive committee
  • Serve as section’s spokesperson

PROGRAM CHAIR (1-year term officially, effectively 3 years as incoming & outgoing too)

  • Attend ISA meeting prior to term
  • Write FTGS call for papers
  • Organize FTGS panels of interest
  • Receive FTGS submissions
  • Organize paper submissions into

panels

  • Recruit chairs & discussants for panels
  • Acquire co-sponsorship for panels
  • Complete panel & poster forms
  • Receive & edit preliminary list of panels
  • Edit schedule of panels
  • Replace chairs & discussants who  

withdraw up until ISA conference

  • Support panels at ISA conference
  • Continual email availability May-July

GRADUATE STUDENT MEMBER (1-year term)

  • Engage in at least one of the FTGS section committees.

MEMBER-AT-LARGE (2-year term)

  • Engage in at least one of the FTGS section committees.

COMMUNICATION OFFICER (2-year term)

  • Promote FTGS activities on social media and online platforms
  • Maintain FTGS website
  • Dispensing announcements/calls via social media and online platforms

FTGS Global Voices Seminar Series: ‘Fictions of Autism in / as International Relations’ (21 September 2022, 2 pm-3 pm UK time)

Registration: Link to registration

Chair: Dr Amanda Chisholm, Senior Lecturer in Security Studies / Researcher in Gender and Security at King’s College London 

Speaker: Julio César Díaz Calderón, Ph.D. Student at the University of Florida

Discussant: Alison Howell, Associate Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University

Autism has appeared in International Relations (IR) mostly as discourses that use widespread stereotypes. They attach ideas that autistic subjects (from people to States) are ‘abnormal’ or ‘diseased’ and thus, in need of treatment for a ‘normal’ and ‘healthy’ behaviour useful for the well-being of societies.

As a response, this discussion will explore the relations between dehumanising uses of autism and body metaphors in academic/scientific texts, and alternative narratives about autism in (literary) texts, studying representational power, disruptive potentiality, and analytical insight of autism, disabilities, and bodies.

The talk will expand on previous understandings of fiction in IR and Fictional IR by undoing the relations between the concepts of fiction-imagination-discipline-autism-first-person narration. As creative contributions and as exemplifications of another type of narratives of autism across international borders, it will present three (post)/(de)colonial queer/feminist crip/tullido original fictions (a poem and two narratives) inviting thinking about fictions of autism moving in/through/to classrooms in different locations (disciplines, North/South divides, material/representational constraints, dis-able/too able/un-ableable narratives, love/hate/hope/hopelessness affections) and about ethical dilemmas and alternatives for when institutions and people are asked, are forced, or want to teach Autistic subjects or subjects that perform autistic behaviour.

About the speaker 

Julio César Díaz Calderón

Julio César Díaz Calderón are a Ph.D. Student at the University of Florida where they held a Fulbright-García Robles Fellowship. They won the Alonso Lujambio Political Essay Contest 2017 with the research entitled “Queer Diplomacy and National Indecision: The Federal Executive Actions on Sexual Diversity in Mexico”. They have published in different peer-reviewed journals and books such as Millennium: Journal of International StudiesCritical Studies on SecurityForo InternacionalRevista Interdisciplinaria de Estudios de Género de El Colegio de México. Currently, they are working on two book manuscripts: “(Violent) International Relations (Violence) and Transformative Aest-Ethics” and “Autism and International Relations: From International Security/Development to Fiction and Back.”

At this event

Amanda Chisholm

Amanda Chisholm

Senior Lecturer in Security Studies / Researcher in Gender and Security