Talking with feminists about what we can know in IR

Abstract

International relations may be arriving at a time when it can recognise the value of taking the feminist contribution to the discipline seriously and on its own terms. This essay begins by outlining the nature of the ‘epistemological impasse’ that has tended to produce an ‘external character’ to the criteria used by feminists when evaluating the mainstream of IR and the criteria the mainstream has used to judge feminists. Tensions within the mainstream, particularly the failure to predict the end of the Cold War, provides an opening for engagement with alternative approaches. The final section elucidates what is regarded as the most significant element of feminist IR as a social science: its own struggle with the ‘quest for certainty’, and its efforts to stimulate and work with epistemological doubt.