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Acknowledgments
We thank the International Law Department and the Gender Centre of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva for their generous support in putting together this special issue and the workshop from which it derives. We further express our gratitude to the editors of the Australian Feminist Law Journal, especially Odette Mazel, Claerwen O'Hara, Valeria Vázquez Guevara and Angela Kintominas, for their patience and assistance in this publishing journey. Our thanks also go to our co-travellers, namely the participants of the workshop, who shaped the many different paths of this special issue. These paths have been further developed by the contributors of this special issue, whom we like to thank for their hard work and the inspiration - one might call it ‘sparks' - that their contributions provide for the queering of methods in international law. Moreover, this issue would not have been possible without the many peer reviewers that have dedicated their time and expertise by providing sensitive, constructive and self-reflexive feedback. We further give thanks to Andrea Furger for providing invaluable support with the editing and proof-reading of the special issue. The issue’s cover was beautifully created by Juliana Santos de Carvalho. Lastly, we thank all the queer scholars, activists, and living beings that sparked in us the dream of having this special issue, and whose existence/resistance created the conditions that made it possible.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Sam Bourcier, Queer zones: la trilogie (Éditions Amsterdam 2018) 177–78.
2 For more information about our efforts to ‘queer’ the organisation of the workshop, see Bérénice K Schramm and others, ‘Doing Queer in the Everyday of Academia: Reflections on Queering a Conference in International Law’ (2022) 116 American Journal of International Law 16.
3 There is a vast tradition of works that explore the issue of ‘travelling theories’, which has arguably been launched by Edward Said’s essays on the theme. See: Edward Said, The World, the Text, and the Critic (Harvard University Press 1983) 226; Edward Said, Reflections on Exile and Other Essays (Harvard University Press 2000) 436. For an overview of works exploring the notion of theories travelling, see: Sue-Ann Harding, ‘Travelling Theory’ in Mona Baker and Gabriela Saldanha (eds), Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies (3rd edn, Routledge 2019).
4 Sara Ahmed, Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others (Duke University Press 2006) 5, 1.
5 ibid 3.
6 ibid 7.
7 Sara Ahmed, ‘Orientations: Toward a Queer Phenomenology’ (2006) 12 GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 543, 561. See also: Manon Beury and Lena Holzer, ‘Orientations as a 3-Dimensional Tool for Practising Positionality in International Law’ (2022) 4 Working Paper, EUI LAW, <https://cadmus.eui.eu/handle/1814/74503> accessed 23 March 2023.
8 Ahmed (n 4) 8.
9 ibid 160.
10 ibid 158–59.
11 Davina Cooper, Everyday Utopias: The Conceptual Life of Promising Spaces (Duke University Press 2014).
12 Grewal, Kiran and others, ‘Confronting “The Household”’ (Feminist Review, 26 May 2020) <https://femrev.wordpress.com/2020/05/26/confronting-the-household/> accessed 21 April 2023.
13 Cooper (n 11).
14 Shaimaa Abdelkarim and others, ‘A Roundtable Conversation: Feminist Collaborative Ethos in International Law’ (2023) 49(1) Australian Feminist Law Journal (this issue).
15 Cooper (n 11) 4.
16 Throughout the editorial process, we tried to keep contributors informed of the different stages and tentative timeline. In the critical stage of receiving peer review reports, we tried to support our contributors by acknowledging how emotionally intense receiving feedback is, and shared the following scholarly and literary resources that can assist in the process. These materials were: Katelyn Knox, ‘What’s It like to Receive Peer Reviews of an Academic Book?’ (Katelyn Knox, 1 June 2021) <https://katelynknox.com/writing-first-humanities-book/receiving-peer-reviews/> accessed 23 March 2023; Siobhan O’Dwyer, Sarah Pinto and Sharon McDonough, ‘Self-Care for Academics: A Poetic Invitation to Reflect and Resist’ (2018) 19 Reflective Practice 243; ‘DEAR SENTHURAN’ (Akwaeke Emezi) <https://www.akwaeke.com/dear-senthuran> accessed 23 March 2023.
17 Rosalind Gill, ‘Breaking the Silence: The Hidden Injuries of the Neoliberal University’ in Róisín Ryan-Flood and Rosalind Gill (eds), Secrecy and Silence in the Research Process: Feminist Reflections (Routledge 2010).
18 Eve Tuck and K Wayne Yang, ‘Decolonization Is Not a Metaphor’ (2012) 1 Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society 1, 3.
19 la paperson, A Third University Is Possible (University of Minnesota Press 2017).
20 ibid 44, 46–47, 52, 60.
21 Bérénice K Schramm, ‘Traductions et Translations: Du et/Ou Des Queer(s) En Droit International’ in Bérénice K Schramm (ed), Queer(s) Et Droit International: Études Du Réseau Olympe (Société de Législation Comparée 2021) [Queer(s) and International Law: Studies by the Olympe Network] 22–33; Annamarie Jagose, Queer Theory: An Introduction (NYU Press 1997) 1–3.
22 Dianne Otto (ed), Queering International Law: Possibilities, Alliances, Complicities, Risks (Routledge 2018); Pedro Paulo Gomes Pereira, Queer in the Tropics: Gender and Sexuality in the Global South (Springer 2019) ch 4.
23 Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (Routledge 1999); Ratna Kapur, Gender, Alterity and Human Rights: Freedom in a Fishbowl (Edward Elgar 2018). On a recent application of this theoretical/political project but in the context of international adjudication, see: Tamsin Phillipa Paige and Joanne Stagg, ‘Queer Approaches to International Adjudication’ in Hélène Ruiz Fabri (ed), Max Planck Encyclopedias of International Law (Oxford University Press 2021) 1–34.
24 These and similar questions are discussed in: Kate Browne and Catherine J Nash, ‘Queer Methods and Methodologies: An Introduction’ in Catherine J Nash and Kath Browne (eds), Queer Methods and Methodologies: Intersecting Queer Theories and Social Science Research (Routledge 2016) 4.
25 Leonam Lucas Nogueira Cunha, ‘Queer Methodologies in the Study of Law: Notes about Queering Methods’ (2023) 49(1) Australian Feminist Law Journal 2 (this issue).
26 Edward Said cited by Uday Chandra, ‘The Case for a Postcolonial Approach to the Study of Politics’ (2013) 35 New Political Science 479, 481.
27 Chandra Mohanty, ‘Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses’ (1988) 30 Feminist review 61; Reina Lewis and Sara Mills (eds), Feminist Postcolonial Theory: A Reader (Routledge 2003); Aníbal Quijano, ‘Coloniality and Modernity/Rationality’ (2007) 21 Cultural Studies 168; María Lugones, ‘Toward a Decolonial Feminism’ (2010) 25 Hypatia 742.
28 By ‘gender essentialism’ we mean notions of gender that rely on a supposedly ‘biological’ foundation of sex to argue that there are fixed and immutable differences between ‘males’ and ‘females’. On a critique of how gender essentialism is translated into (international) law, see, among others: Brenda Cossman, ‘Gender Performance, Sexual Subjects and International Law’ (2002) 15 Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence 281; Dianne Otto, ‘Queering Gender [Identity] in International Law’ (2015) 33 Nordic Journal of Human Rights 299; Lena Holzer, ‘Sexually Dimorphic Bodies: A Production of Birth Certificates’ (2019) 45 Australian Feminist Law Journal 91.
29 In this regard, feminists have been particularly attuned to seeing international law through a pluralist lens – for that, see, among others: Zoe Pearson, ‘Feminist Project(s): The Spaces of International Law’ in Sari Kouvo and Zoe Pearson (eds), Feminist Perspectives on Contemporary International Law Between Resistance and Compliance? (Hart Publishing 2011); Yoriko Otomo, ‘Searching for Virtue in International Law’ in Sari Kouvo and Zoe Pearson (eds), Feminist Perspectives on Contemporary International Law Between Resistance and Compliance? (Hart Publishing 2011); Gina Heathcote, Feminist Dialogues on International Law: Success, Tensions, Futures (Oxford University Press 2019). On the plurality of methods in international law, see Rossana Deplano and Nicholas Tsagourias (eds), Research Methods in International Law Research Methods in International Law: a Handbook (Edward Elgar 2021). More specifically, see Sundhya Pahuja’s contribution to that volume: Sundhya Pahuja, ‘Methodology: Writing about How We Do Research’ in Rossana Deplano and Nikolaos K Tsagourias (eds), Research Methods in International Law: A Handbook (Edward Elgar 2021).
30 Ahmed (n 7) 563.
31 Abdelkarim and others (n 14).
32 Ahmed (n 4) 1–8.
33 Critical social theorists Barbara Adam and Chris Groves have argued for the necessity of doing away with reductionism as it applies to futurity. Instead, future is both lived and living, as in part and parcel of our present reality; B Adam and C Groves, Future Matters: Action, Knowledge, Ethics (Brill 2007).
34 Kathryn McNeilly, ‘Queer Temporalities and Human Rights’ in Ben Warwick (ed), The Times and Temporalities of International Human Rights Law (Hart Publishing 2022).
35 Claerwen O’Hara, ‘In Search of a Queerer Law: Two People’s Tribunals in 1976’ (2023) 49(1) Australian Feminist Law Journal (this issue).
36 ibid 8.
37 Giovanna Gilleri, ‘Human Rights Discourses and Subject Formations: Tainting Queer Theory with Psychoanalysis’ (2023) 49(1) Australian Feminist Law Journal (this issue).
38 ibid 15.
39 Kseniya A Kirichenko, ‘Queer Intersectional Perspective on LGBTI Human Rights Discourses by United Nations Treaty Bodies’ (2023) 49(1) Australian Feminist Law Journal (this issue).
40 ibid 6.
41 ibid 15.
42 Odette Mazel, ‘The Texture of “Lives Lived with Law:” Methods for Queering International Law’ (2023) 49(1) Australian Feminist Law Journal (this issue).
43 ibid 11.
44 Gilleri (n 37) 12–14.
45 Zoe Pearson, ‘Spaces of International Law’ (2008) 17 Griffith Law Review 489.
46 David Ikpo, ‘Advancing Queer-Inclusive International Human Rights Law Education in Nigerian Classrooms Through Indigenous Storytelling: Stories from a Law Classroom at Eko (Lagos, Nigeria)’ (2023) 49(1) Australian Feminist Law Journal (this issue).
47 African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, ‘Resolution on Protection against Violence and other Human Rights Violations against Persons on the basis of their real or imputed Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity’ ACHPR/Res.275(LV)2014.
48 Abdelkarim (n 14).
49 Larry Knopp, ‘From Lesbian and Gay to Queer Geographies: Pasts, Prospects and Possibilities’, in Kath Browne, Jason Lim and Gavin Brown (eds), Geographies of Sexualities: Theory, Practices and Politics (Ashgate 2007) 22–23.
50 Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex’ (Routledge 1993) 221.
51 Samuel Ballin, ‘Four Challenges, Three Identities and a Double Movement in Asylum Law: Queering the “Particular Social Group” after Mx M’ (2023) 49(1) Australian Feminist Law Journal (this issue).
52 ibid 7.
53 ibid 17.
54 Nogueira Cunha (n 25).
55 ibid.
56 ibid 3.
57 ibid.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Lena Holzer
Lena Holzer (she/her) is currently a Lecturer in Law at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her research lies in the area of queer-feminist interpretations of international law and sports law.
Bérénice K. Schramm
Bérénice K. Schramm is currently assistant professor of law at Bahçeşehir University where she founded the first Gender Law Clinic in Turkey. Embedded in post/de-colonial feminist and queer approaches, her research spans various fields of (international) law, disciplines and languages.
Juliana Santos de Carvalho
Juliana Santos de Carvalho (she/her) is currently a PhD candidate in International Law with a minor in International Relations/Political Science at the Geneva Graduate Institute. Her research interests include feminist and decolonial approaches to international law, international legal theory, and international justice systems.
Manon Beury
Manon Beury (she/her) is currently a PhD candidate in International Law at the Geneva Graduate Institute and Human Rights Officer at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Her research focuses on feminist and queer approaches to international norms regarding gender and sexuality.