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Posthumanism and Feminist International Relations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2013

Elina Penttinen*
Affiliation:
University of Helsinki

Extract

Hudson, Bowen, and Nielsen (2011) seek to use evolutionary biology as a form of metafeminism, or as an ultimate cause to understand the roots of patriarchy. Patriarchy as a system that ontologically creates women's discrimination and legitimates violence is widely accepted within a range of feminisms and has been the foundational argument of feminist scholarship. The concern that is raised here in regard to Hudson, Bowen, and Nielsen's article is not the validity of their concern with investigating the relationship between inequity in family law and violence against women, but the basis of their argument in evolutionary biology. In this essay, I bring posthumanism and especially new (vital) materialism as a way to build bridges with the feminist evolutionary analytical approach (FEAA) and constructivist or linguistic-oriented approaches in International Relations (IR). Posthumanism is an approach to social theorizing that addresses the impossibility of the nature/culture distinction in novel ways.

Type
Critical Perspectives on Gender and Politics
Copyright
Copyright © The Women and Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association 2013

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References

Barad, Karen. 2007. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Bennett, Jane. 2010. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Coole, Diana, and Frost, Samantha, eds. 2010. New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency and Politics. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Hudson, Valerie M., Bowen, Donna Lee, and Nielson, Perpetua Lynne. 2011. “What Is the Relationship between Inequality in Family Law and Violence against Women? Approaching the Issue in Legal Enclaves.” Politics & Gender 7 (4): 453–92.Google Scholar