Gender, Race, and Power: Examining IR through an Intersectional Lens

There are currently many books and articles that look at aspects of gender or race and international relations but none that embrace a broad intersectional approach (in terms of both gender and race that goes beyond a postcolonial perspective) to the study of the field. After introducing the approach, Kaufman and Williams then proceed through critical issues in international relations and the ways in which an intersectional approach that examines race, gender, class, ethnicity, and power can help us arrive at better explanations for these IR issues.

The approach in this text builds on what many of the feminist IR theorists called for to address traditional issues such as security and war. Feminist IR theorists, led by scholars such as Ann Tickner and Cynthia Enloe, asked the question “Where are the women?” as a guiding principle. Feminist approaches to IR have been a part of the field for decades, but it is only fairly recently that students of IR have broadened the approach to the field to incorporate the dimensions of race, ethnicity, and class as well as gender. Thus, we ask questions like: How does gender matter for understanding war and peace? How does race matter? Where are the men? What is intersectionality in IR? How does an intersectional approach change/broaden our understanding of international relations?