DAFF 22A04 - Gendering World Politics: Feminist International Relations

How can an understanding of gender help us better understand International Relations and Global Politics? Where do feminist theories and gender studies (FTGS) stand in relation to IR as a discipline? What different approaches exist in feminist IR and how do they help us understand and address pressing global issues such as migration, climate change, global governance, development, political violence, and more? How does gender intersect with other power relations in Global Politics such as race, coloniality, class, caste, normative sexuality, etc.? This course starts from the assertion that gender matters in understanding empirical and theoretical issues of/in International Relations and Global Politics. It seeks to answer the questions above by exploring the rich field of Feminist Theory and Gender Studies in IR. Through its exploration of various issues of/in Global Politics that might have been dismissed or overlooked by other perspectives, FTGS has made significant contributions to the discipline of International Relations that we will explore together. Taking Cynthia Enloe’s famous quote “The personal is International” as a starting point, the course will apply conceptual and theoretical material to concrete empirical examples ranging from the everyday and popular culture to international organizations and foreign policies.

At the end of the course, the student is expected to :

1°) Have a broad understanding of different Feminist IR perspectives and be able to apply them to analyze different global political phenomena;

2°) Understand the role gender plays in global politics and how it intersects with other power relations on a number of global issues;

3°) Be able to critically assess competing perspectives, discourses and narratives related to gender norms and politics.

The pedagogical format of this course will be interactive lecturing; which means it will require your active engagement with the material and in-class participation. Students will often be asked to discuss in small and large groups, analyze videos and other media material, and apply what we see in class to concrete examples and situations.

To validate the course, the student is expected to pass the following assignments :

1°) Participation 20%

Your participation in class is central to the course’s success: the quality of the exchanges and interactions you will have with me and your colleagues will have an important impact on the learning experience. Your participation will be evaluated based not only on the number of interventions you make, but mostly on their quality, as well as on your interactions with other students. A positive participation is one that builds upon other people’s ideas and makes connections between different interventions; favors nuances, complexities and engages ideas with generosity and respect; shows intellectual curiosity, critical thinking, originality and open-mindedness; and ensures a fair and balanced distribution of speech amongst participants. Engagement with the readings will also be assessed.

2°) Final exam (30%) There will be a final exam covering the material from the whole semester. Two weeks prior to the exam, you will be provided with a list of 10 essay questions to prepare in advance. The day of the exam, three questions will be picked at random, and you will have to answer two at length. ......................................

3°) Simulated roundtables (50%) On week 9, we will hold two simulated roundtables on specific gendered issues, namely microcredit and HIV/AIDS. In each roundtable, you will be paired in teams of two to represent one of five specific actors (randomly assigned). You will have to impersonate your actor and defend its position on a outline of your presentation on which you will receive qualitative feedback to prepare for the debate. More information will be provided during the semester.

• Roundtable 1 on microcredit: The UNDP (United Nations Development Program) has received a substantial donation to be used explicitly for advancing gender equality in development. The organization is wondering if it should devote this envelope to fund microfinance projects (if so, why and how?) or if it should refrain from doing so (if so, why and what alternatives should it consider instead?). It has therefore invited five organizations to participate in a roundtable to argue in favor or against microcredit:

o the World Bank

o the Grameen Bank

o AWID (the association for women’s rights in development)

o DAWN feminist

o OXFAM

• Roundtable 2 on HIV/AIDS: This roundtable is organized by the World Health Organization on the International Women’s Rights Day on the topic of HIV/AIDS. Considering that the virus disproportionately affects women as well as gender and sexual minorities, the event today aims at exploring if the WHO should adopt a resolution demanding its members provide the newly developed HIV vaccine for free to vulnerable populations, namely women from the Global South and gender/sexual minorities. To decide on such an issue, it has invited different organisations to argue in favor or against such a proposition, and either provide concrete ways to achieve it, or provide alternative solutions:

o Act-Up Paris

o KIWAKKUKI (Women against Aids in Kilimanjaro)

o ASAAP (Alliance for South Asian Aids Prevention)

o The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

o Gilead Sciences Inc.specific question with/against the other teams. The rest of the class and the professor will then adopt a resolution based on which arguments they found most compelling. By the end of week 7, you will have to provide an