Torn apart! Transnational feminist researchers’ geopolitical positionality in (pre-) COVID-19 times

Abstract

In this article, we examine the ‘geopolitical positionality’ of transnational feminist researchers caught between hostile countries (home-field). We define geopolitical positionality as the researchers’ position influenced by international politics, discourses, and practices by core powers and hegemonic states. By revisiting our fieldwork experiences, we interrogate how our geopolitical positionalities have a great impact on the process of feminist knowledge production and researchers’ well-being amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. In the era of global trade wars, the geopolitical positionality of transnational researchers requires more scholarly attention; however, a focus on this geopolitical positionality remains practically nonexistent in feminist geography. This article works to fill this void by reflecting on our fieldwork experiences in the geopolitical tensions between China and the US (for Ruwen Chang) and between South Korea and Japan (for Jaeyeon Lee). By sharing our vulnerabilities and hardships concerning our fieldwork prior to and during the COVID-19 crisis, we aim to accomplish two goals. First, by showing the vulnerability of transnational feminist researchers who are caught between hostile countries (home-field), we hope to create a space of compassion and support in/beyond academia. Second, with our analysis of geopolitical positionality, we demonstrate that transnational knowledge is precariously produced across imaginary and material boundaries between the personal, the academic, the national, and the geopolitical.

Keywords:

• COVID-19
• fieldwork
• geopolitics
• positionality
• transnationalism
• well-being

Acknowledgements

We are very grateful to Drs. Anna Secor, Cristina Alcalde, and Srimati Basu for reading this article and offering helpful feedback. Without their devoted support and help, this work would not have been possible. We also deeply appreciate Dr. Ozlem Altan-Olcay and the three anonymous reviewers of Gender, Place, & Culture for their careful readings, practical suggestions, and tremendously helpful comments. We also appreciate Drs. Nazgol Bagheri and Jenna Loyd’s insightful questions, comments, and support on this research during the Feminist Geography Conference in 2022. We would also like to thank Dr. MyungIn Ji for her feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.