Doing Feminist International Relations: A Guide

Abstract

Feminist Methodologies for International Relations. Edited by Brooke A. Ackerly, Maria Stern, Jacqui True. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. 332 pp., $75.00 cloth (ISBN: 0-521-86115-2), $29.99 paper (ISBN: 0-521-67835-8). Asserting the diversity of feminist approaches to international relations has become a refrain within the subfield. Yet, few scholars have ventured to assess this diversity, fearing that they would marginalize some, exclude others, and establish hegemonic centers in the discursive terrain that makes up feminist international relations. The dearth of integrative scholarship has made it difficult to develop collective research agendas or define debates. Although a wealth of innovative empirical studies have been done, there is little theory building. As a result, the subfield seems stuck in a fruitless exchange between those with modern and those with post-modern leanings, between those interested in talking to “the mainstream” and those warning of the dangers of cooptation. Given this situation, Feminist Methodologies for International Relations by Brooke Ackerly, Maria Stern, and Jacqui True arrives as a breath of fresh air. Developed in the course of a series of International Studies Association (ISA) panels and an ISA workshop, the volume brings together scholars with a range of orientations and allows them to define their work around the topic of methodology. The result is a book that sketches the contours of the field and will likely provide a point of reference for some time to come. Feminist Methodologies for International Relations has three parts. The first part expands on conversations between feminist and nonfeminist international relations. J. Ann Tickner sets the stage, suggesting that most feminist IR literature has adopted post-positivist methodologies. She describes these methodologies and explains why feminists often have reservations about quantitative research. In contrast, Marysia Zalewski refuses the invitation to describe feminist methodology because, she argues, it will never measure up …