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| The Body in International Relations | |
|---|---|
| Name | The Body in International Relations |
| Subject | International Relations, embodiment, security studies |
The Body in International Relations offers an interdisciplinary examination of how corporeality shapes, and is shaped by, global politics. Combining insights from Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Antonio Gramsci, Hannah Arendt, and Michel de Certeau, the topic intersects with debates in Realism (international relations), Liberalism (international relations), Constructivism (international relations), and Postcolonialism. It brings bodies into analysis of actors such as the United Nations, NATO, European Union, African Union, and ASEAN and events like the Cold War, World War II, Rwandan Genocide, and Syrian Civil War.
Scholarship draws on theories by Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Erving Goffman, Pierre Bourdieu, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak to interrogate embodiment, performativity, and biopower in contexts including the United Nations Security Council, International Criminal Court, World Health Organization, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. Debates relate to frameworks pioneered in works such as Discipline and Punish, Gender Trouble, Orientalism, The Condition of Postmodernity, and The Wretched of the Earth, and engage actors like Amartya Sen, Martha Nussbaum, Susan Sontag, Frantz Fanon, and Edward Said.
Historical studies trace bodily governance across eras marked by the Treaty of Westphalia, Congress of Vienna, Berlin Conference (1884–85), League of Nations, and United Nations Charter. Analyses link corporeal regimes to imperial formation in the British Empire, Ottoman Empire, French colonial empire, and Spanish Empire, and to decolonization moments exemplified by Indian independence movement, Algerian War, Vietnam War, and Decolonization of Africa. Twentieth‑century turning points—World War I, World War II, Nuremberg Trials, and the Cold War—recast bodies via population transfers, refugee crises like the Palestinian exodus, and policies by states such as the United States, Soviet Union, People's Republic of China, and Japan.
Corporal ontologies inform securitization processes led by institutions such as the Department of Defense (United States), MI6, KGB, Interpol, and Homeland Security (United States). Scholarship examines bodies framed as threats in episodes like the 9/11 attacks, Iraq War, Afghanistan War (2001–2021), and counterinsurgency campaigns in Algeria (1954–1962). Studies connect biometric programs, border regimes at places like the US–Mexico border, and surveillance systems used by states including Israel and China to debates around bodies in documents such as the Patriot Act, Schengen Agreement, and Geneva Conventions.
Research highlights how states—exemplified by United States Department of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (United Kingdom), Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Russia), and Ministry of External Affairs (India)—instrumentalize gendered and racialized bodies in policies toward regions like the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America. Case studies reference actors and events including Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton, Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir, Beijing Declaration, UN Women, #MeToo movement, Black Lives Matter, and the legacy of colonial encounters such as the Transatlantic slave trade and Scramble for Africa.
Theories address combatant and civilian bodies in conflicts like the Bosnian War, Rwandan Genocide, Srebrenica massacre, Syrian Civil War, and Yugoslav Wars. Humanitarian actors—International Committee of the Red Cross, Médecins Sans Frontières, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNICEF, and Save the Children—navigate embodied suffering, displacement, and rehabilitation following crises such as Haiti earthquake (2010), Indian Ocean tsunami (2004), and Ebola epidemic in West Africa (2014–2016). Discussions connect war crimes prosecutions at the International Criminal Court and truth commissions like South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission to bodily evidence, documentation, and memory.
The intersection of public health and geopolitics engages organizations including the World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, GAVI, UNAIDS, and Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Pandemics—Spanish flu, HIV/AIDS pandemic, SARS outbreak (2002–2004), H1N1 pandemic, and COVID‑19 pandemic—foreground biopolitical governance, vaccine diplomacy by states like United States, China, Russia, and India, and legal regimes such as the International Health Regulations. Scholarship draws on cases like Smallpox eradication, Polio eradication, and debates around biosecurity and dual‑use research at institutions such as Pasteur Institute and Johns Hopkins University.
Methodologies combine archival research at places like the National Archives (United Kingdom), Library of Congress, and Hoover Institution with ethnography in settings such as refugee camps run by UNHCR, courtroom analysis at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and visual analysis of media produced by outlets including BBC, Al Jazeera, The New York Times, and The Guardian. Interdisciplinary linkages draw from Anthropology, Sociology, Gender studies, History, and Public Health and engage scholars such as Cynthia Enloe, Anne McClintock, Sara Ahmed, Nicholas Dirks, and William Connolly.