Intersectionality & IR: Human Rights, Climate Change, and Economics/Development

• In Event: Intersectional Approaches to Elections and Institutions

Abstract

Feminist and post-colonial scholars have challenged traditional IR’s focus on states, power, and security, through utilizing an intersectional analysis. An intersectional analysis, one that takes into account categories such as race, gender, class, religion, and ethnicity, may provide a more comprehensive and holistic understanding of issues of war, peace, and security and the study of IR more generally. In other words, how might gender, race, and class matter in an examination of climate change and climate justice? How might gender, race, and class help better understand the motivations for as well as the impacts of humanitarian intervention in intrastate conflicts? This paper utilizes an intersectional analysis to explore three IR topics: human rights and humanitarian intervention, climate change, and economics/development. In so doing, the paper asks how addressing many of the basic IR questions from an intersectional perspective leads us to different answers, thereby expanding our knowledge of the field.

Authors

• Kristen Williams, Clark University

• Joyce P. Kaufman, Whittier College