Gendering Terror: DISCOURSES OF TERRORISM AND WRITING WOMAN-AS-AGENT

This article problematizes the deployment of the concept of agency in contemporary international relations scholarship. It examines the problems of relying on a foundationalist conception of agency as a tool to achieve meaningful political action by exploring the case of scholarship on the topic of...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International feminist journal of politics 2012-03, Vol.14 (1), p.121-139
Main Author: Auchter, Jessica
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
agency
Agency and Structure
Females
Feminism
Intellectuals
International Relations
performativity
Political Action
Scholarship
Subjectivity
Terrorism
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Summary:This article problematizes the deployment of the concept of agency in contemporary international relations scholarship. It examines the problems of relying on a foundationalist conception of agency as a tool to achieve meaningful political action by exploring the case of scholarship on the topic of women and terrorism. I argue that scholars on the topic of women and terrorism inscribe agency into women's subjectivities, that is, they place agency as the goal of feminist political action. By tracing the way that scholars write agency into women's subjectivities through an examination of the literature on the topic, I am able to demonstrate how reliance on agency as a foundational concept hinders the goals of feminists.
ISSN:1461-6742
1468-4470
DOI:10.1080/14616742.2011.619780