Feminist Global Political Economies of the Everyday: From Bananas to Bingo

Abstract

Feminist studies of political economy have long pointed to the multifaceted ways in which global transformations are constituted by deeply gendered economic practices at the everyday level. Nonetheless, the increased analytical focus on the everyday within the study of international political economy (IPE) frequently fails to connect with feminist theories and gendered approaches. In this introductory essay, we argue that any discussion of a ‘turn’ towards the everyday in IPE must acknowledge the role of feminist contributions that predate, and indeed make possible, this shift in IPE scholarship's analytical gaze towards the everyday. We map out what might be understood as feminist political economies of the everyday—highlighting the points of connection between feminist scholarship on the everyday, as well as the ways in which feminist scholars engage with the notion of an everyday political economy in quite distinct and diverse ways—a diversity that reflects the methodological and theoretical pluralism of feminist political economy scholarship as well as the ever broadening geographical scope of feminist research.

Keywords:

• feminism
• gender
• everyday
• international political economy (IPE)
• feminist political economy

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Adrienne Roberts http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0204-5152

Notes

1 A concern with the role of visual popular cultures in the production of the gendered global political economy is emphasized in Griffin's (2015) recent work.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Juanita Elias

Juanita Elias is Associate Professor in International Political Economy at Warwick University. Her research and teaching interests concern the political economy of Southeast Asia, migration, the gendered political economy of the household and feminist approaches to International Political Economy more broadly. Recent work has appeared in Globalizations, Asian Studies Review, Politics and Gender and International Political Sociology. She is co-editor with Lena Rethel of The everyday political economy of Southeast Asia (Cambridge University Press, 2016) and co-editor with Samanthi J. Gunawardana of The global political economy of the household in Asia (Palgrave MacMillan 2013).

Adrienne Roberts

Adrienne Roberts is a Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Manchester. Her research interests are in the areas of international political economy, feminist political economy, gender and finance, debt and debt-driven development, and the criminalization of poverty. Recent work has been published in journals that include New Political Economy, British Journal of Politics and International Relations, International Feminist Journal of Politics, and Critical Sociology. She is author of Gendered states of punishment and welfare, forthcoming with Routledge/RIPE series in Global Political Economy and co-editor of the Handbook of international political economy of gender, forthcoming with Edward Elgar.