International Studies Perspectives (2013) 14, 455–458.
Emancipatory Potential in Feminist Security
Studies
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SOUMITA BASU
South Asian University
Forum: The State of Feminist Security Studies: Continuing the Conversa-
tion. This forum comprises seven pieces conceived in response to the
recent Politics & Gender Critical Perspectives section that featured contri-
butions from Carol Cohn, Valerie Hudson, Jennifer Lobasz, Laura
Sjoberg, Ann Tickner, Annick Wibben, and Lauren Wilcox (P&G 2011,
Vol. 7, Issue 4). Throughout, we refer to this collection as “the CP
section.”
Keywords: feminism, critical security studies, emancipation
Certainly, not all feminists need to, or could, agree on everything such that there
would be a single feminist position. There are, however, some basic commitments
that are not negotiable, chief among them that feminism is a political project
committed to emancipation/empowerment and broader social justice. (Wibben
2011: 591)
In my own work, my motivation centers on problems in the world I want to
change—not on a field of academia I want to change. (Cohn 2011: 583)
My contribution here focuses on the normative agenda of feminist research
on security. This interest is based on my association of feminist scholarship with
emancipatory politics. In this context, I engage specifically with the contributions
of Annick Wibben and Carol Cohn to the CP section. Their concerns with
engendering transformations—“emancipation/empowerment and broader social
justice” and “problems in the world I want to change”—have been central to
feminist International Relations (IR), including in the field of security, as
I understand it. I discuss the importance of taking seriously the normative
agenda of Feminist Security Studies (FSS), arguing that it is a defining compo-
nent of this field of research. Following this, I examine possible links between
FSS and emancipatory politics.
At least two aspects of feminist research on security call for an explicit atten-
tion to the normative agenda of FSS: the links between theory and practice and
the clear distinction—in normative terms—between feminist writings on security
in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and mainstream security studies of that time.
First, feminist scholarship owes a debt to women’s movements, generally associ-
ated with white, Western feminists but actually linked also to movements spear-
headed by, among others, third world, black, and queer feminists. Lived
experiences of individuals and communities, and their articulation by feminist
activists, have informed what we now recognize as a nuanced academic field. In
Basu, Soumita. (2013) Emancipatory Potential in Feminist Security Studies. International Studies Perspectives,
doi: 10.1111/insp.12043
! 2013 International Studies Association
456 Emancipatory Potential in Feminist Security Studies
view of this relationship, feminist scholars have a responsibility to ensure that
this engagement is not a one-way street. Not every project need (or can) adopt a
participatory action research method or indeed go down the prescriptive path,
but the questions of “why do this research [here FSS]?” and “what are its politi-
cal implications?” are crucial.
Second, the founding scholars of FSS re-envisioned the concept of security in
fundamental ways. Ann Tickner, for instance, defined security “broadly in multi-
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dimensional and multilevel terms—as the diminution of all forms of violence,
including physical, structural and ecological” (1997:625; see also Enloe 1990).
Such re-conceptualizations of security took place in spite of the challenges posed
by the rigid boundaries of neorealist conceptions of security against which FSS
emerged. This also enriched the field of feminist IR through engagement with
issues that were not central to feminist research at this time (Tickner 2011:577).
Admittedly, much of what we now describe as FSS has come to focus on armed
conflicts, and matters of international peace and security (generally understood),
but feminist scholarship offers radical imaginings of security through the
employment of gender. It sets out an agenda for transformations that is founda-
tional for FSS. For these reasons, while the normative agenda should be (and
has been) interrogated, it should not be sidelined in feminist research on secu-
rity or indeed disciplinary reflections on its scope and potential.
In my reading of the CP section, the essays by Cohn and Wibben most directly
address the normative agenda—existing and potential—of FSS and political com-
mitments of feminist scholarship. Both demonstrate an interest in engaging with
political practices outside of academia, recognize the existence of “structural
power relations” and a “matrix of power” in security politics, and highlight the
possibility—and indeed, importance—of supporting the work of women civil
society organizations, women peace builders, and feminist activists.1 While there
are feminist critiques that interrogate each of the commitments—especially,
pointing to the danger of what Wibben describes as “awkward do-goodism in the
imperialist tradition of ‘saving natives’” (2011:593; see also Cohn 2011:585)—the
critiques too are based on particular worldviews with political implications. Fur-
ther, the poststructuralist argument about “our fundamental condition of vulner-
ability” is also important as it foregrounds the futility of “the search for security
as traditionally conceived” (Wibben 2011:593). Yet, the persistence of uncertainty
cannot be an excuse for inertia because this reproduces the status quo. Debates
such as these, however, foster the dynamism within feminist research on security,
and keep the boundaries of FSS porous.
It is then crucial that we interrogate the stated purposes of the “FSS project,”
whatever that may be. But we cannot deny that feminist scholarship, including
FSS, should have an agenda. Emancipation, with its historical baggage of making
universalist claims (to the detriment of many people), can be a problematic
“guiding light” in this respect. However, as I have argued elsewhere (Basu 2011),
it is possible to envisage emancipatory possibilities that are context-specific, real-
izable, and flexible, and yet cognizant of the need to transform oppressive matri-
ces of structural power. FSS has critiqued the concept of security because of its
association with “national security” that can ultimately pose direct or indirect
threats to the citizens of the state. Yet, “security,” before it was co-opted as the
motivation for hyper-masculine political conduct marked by aggression and self-
interest, was—and continues to be in everyday vocabulary—about a sense of well-
being. This logic of security connects seamlessly to emancipatory goals (Basu
2011:101).
1
I am grateful to the anonymous reviewer for highlighting the need and possibilities for transformations within
the academy as well, in terms of teaching, research, and indeed our everyday scholarly practices.
S OUMITA B ASU 457
As noted earlier, the normative agenda is important to the FSS project since it
provides a political rationale for the coming together of “feminist,” “security,”
and “studies.” In this context, I am yet to appreciate the conceptual value of the
distinction that Cohn makes between feminist “security studies” and “feminist
security” studies (2011:581–583). To me, it seems that the confluence of femi-
nism (broadly, a worldview) and security (a concept) has yielded a field of
research that is more than the sum of its parts. I illustrate this point with an
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example. One of the earliest feminist interventions in the realm of international
security was to demonstrate the prevalent use of rape as a tactic of war, even
though rape has traditionally been considered incidental to armed conflict. This
link between conventional security concerns, such as territorial disputes, and the
use of women’s bodies made it possible to recognize the intimate ways in which
the personal is linked to the political (Kelly 2000; Turshen 2001). Following con-
certed advocacy, rape has been recognized as a crime against humanity under
international law. The prevalence of sexual violence against men has also gained
policy and scholarly attention (Zarkov 2001).
Feminist research that engages with the concepts of gender and security
together, it would appear, is implicitly or explicitly directed toward transforma-
tions of gendered hierarchies inherent in relations of insecurity that make people
vulnerable. Indeed, the interventions against sexual violence by feminist activists
and scholars, while re-defining the scope of security in international politics by
taking seriously women’s experiences, also involve feminist appreciation of “secu-
rity logics” that dictate the treatment of vulnerable bodies in particular ways dur-
ing periods of armed conflict. Evaluations of “achievements” of FSS, however,
tend to focus on its engagement with the mainstream field of security studies. But
it is important also to consider its impact on feminist IR. Arguably, FSS scholars
dominate contemporary feminist IR, and yet, the ways in which engagements with
the concept and practices of security have changed this field of study has not gar-
nered much attention. This, I hope, will be on our collective “to-do” list.
Finally, critical of scholars who argue that the concept of security should be
state-centric or focused on wars (or, basically, identified with a pre-determined
checklist provided by scholars or policymakers) for analytical coherence, I am
not suggesting that we put up walls around the evolving field of FSS. I would,
however, point to work that engages with the concepts of gender and security
but is not, and does not, seek to be part of what may be called FSS (see, for
instance, Carpenter 2002). In contrast, employing gender as a relational concept,
a feminist project takes seriously questions of power, especially the ways in which
structures or matrices of power situate people in positions of strength and vul-
nerability. The methodological commitments developed in Ackerly, Stern, and
True (2006) and outlined in Wibben (2011:592) are important here. And, so is
the underlying normative agenda of emancipation (warts and all) that I have
focused on here. For unless a research project takes account of its emancipatory
potential, what is feminist about it?
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