Follow the Bodies: Feminist Political Economy of War and Peace
Wed, March 13, 12:30-1:30pm PT (online)
Register here!
The war in Ukraine and the prospect of renewed warfare elsewhere in Europe is rapidly shifting the security and economic landscape not only in Europe but around the world. Less visibly, it is also – like other wars before – transforming gender relations, especially as it happens at the time when existing women’s rights are challenged and rolled back even in Europe and in the United States. Yet, women’s and feminist perspectives allow us to see wars differently, shifting and loosening their temporal and spatial boundaries. Situated within feminist political economy of conflict and post-conflict recovery, the lecture highlights two aspects of war that are not always sufficiently recognized by scholars of international relations and international security. First, feminist political economists emphasize continuums and circuits of violence, thus questioning the usual dichotomies of war and peace, economy and security, domestic and international, public and private. Second, feminist scholars stress enduring and transformative aspects of wars, analyzing ways in which wars make and remake men, women, sexualities, and gender relations more broadly. Thus, from a feminist perspective, wars – and their aftermath – are not isolated phenomena: they are integral to the global political economy and its gendered and racial hierarchies. By looking at wars in the post-Cold War period – from the former Yugoslavia to contemporary Ukraine – the lecture will address lasting effects of wars and militarization on gender relations, political representation, and processes of social reproduction.
Aida A. Hozić is Associate Professor of international relations at the University of Florida, Gainesville, United States. Her research is situated at the intersections of feminist political economy, cultural studies, and international security. Her current research projects focus on crime and state in Southeastern Europe, visual representations of race in international politics, and the diffusion of global arts markets in the 21st century. She is the author of Hollyworld: Space, Power and Fantasy in the American Economy (Cornell University Press, 2002), co-editor (with Jacqui True) of Scandalous Economics: Gender and Politics of Financial Crises (Oxford University Press, 2016). She has written dozens of peer-reviewed articles and chapters in edited volumes. Her work has been supported by the John D. and Katherine T. MacArthur Foundation, IREX, Institute for Turkish Studies, Open Society Institute, multiple Fulbright awards and many other fellowships. She is currently a Co-Lead Editor of Review of International Political Economy and an Editor of International Political Sociology. Her public writing has appeared on the pages of Slate, Foreign Policy, Politico, Al Jazeera, Le Monde, Guernica and other media. In the Spring of 2023, she will be a Distinguished Professor of Politics and International Relations at Pembroke College, Oxford University, United Kingdom.
This events is co-sponsored with the UBC Centre for Migration Studies.