Twenty-five years of Bananas, Beaches and Bases: A conversation with Cynthia Enloe

Abstract

Cynthia Enloe’s book Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics brought a new approach to the study of war, conflict and political economy, an approach informed by and starting from a feminist curiosity. Such a starting point allows for recognition of the diverse, often disregarded gendered dynamics of militarization. A feminist curiosity facilitates making visible the politicization of everyday life via what Enloe calls a bottom-up approach to research and investigation. This account of a conversation between feminist scholars draws attention to the means by which researchers exercise the sociological imagination in their work on labour, militarism and war; the theorizing of gendered militarization; the role for feminist activism around conflict and sexual violence as well as solidarity politics; and the life cycle of Bananas, Beaches and Bases.