Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics

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While you might daydream about becoming a senior foreign policy expert in your country's diplomatic corps, you may deliberately shy away from thinking about whether you will be able to sustain a relationship with a partner while you pursue this ambition. But the more I thought about Pocahontas and Carmen Miranda, the more I began to suspect that I had been missing an entire dimension of international politics—I got an inkling of how relations between governments depend not only on capital and weaponry but also on the control of women as symbols, consumers, workers, and emotional comforters. The book features chapters on tourism, colonialism, nationalism, women and military bases, diplomatic spouses, Carmen Miranda and banana plantations, female textile workers, international bankers, migrant domestic workers and the International Monetary Fund. One’s feminist-informed digging is fueled by a desire to reveal the ideas, relationships, and policies those (usually unequal) gendered workings rely upon. That is, making useful sense—feminist sense—of international politics requires us to follow diverse women to places that are usually dismissed by conventional foreign affairs experts as merely private, domestic, local, or trivial.

Chapter one. Gender Makes the World Go Round - De Gruyter Chapter one. Gender Makes the World Go Round - De Gruyter

First and foremost has been Joni Seager, coauthor of the groundbreaking feminist atlas, Women in the World. More Hamburger icon An icon used to represent a menu that can be toggled by interacting with this icon. This new edition of Bananas, Beaches and Bases demonstrates beyond all doubt the enduring brilliance of Cynthia Enloe’s fastidious documenting of women’s lives as they shape and are shaped by the power-play of international politics. In this brand new radical analysis of globalization, Cynthia Enloe examines recent events—Bangladeshi garment factory deaths, domestic workers in the Persian Gulf, Chinese global tourists, and the UN gender politics of guns—to reveal the crucial role of women in international politics today. But it was the below-the-pipes (and below-the-pavement) atmosphere that gave me the sense that I was on the edge, uncovering a layer of international political life that had been kept out of sight.Some of the most exciting work is being done by Third World feminist theorists, such as Swasti Mitter, Chandra Mohanty, and Peggy Antrobus. This is a key motivation for anyone exploring the international politics of masculinities to adopt an explicitly feminist curiosity.

Bananas, Beaches and Bases by Cynthia Enloe | Perlego [PDF] Bananas, Beaches and Bases by Cynthia Enloe | Perlego

When we see each other, we trade hunches and findings; we encourage each other in our continuing investigations into the workings of patriarchy in all its guises. Those whom Adrienne Rich has referred to as the women in the back rows of politics are about to be given the serious attention they have long deserved. Who pays attention to women as clerical workers when, allegedly, it is elite men (and a handful of elite women) who determine the fates of nations? Generous friends not only have put up with my occasionally odd preoccupation, but have reminded me of the point of pursuing feminist puzzles.

She has said that she wanted to come up with a phrase that she felt could be understood in both English and Japanese as her lecture was being translated for those who attended. She is also a member of the academic network of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. Cynthia Enloe's Report from The Syrian Peace Talks, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom January 30, 2014.

Bananas, Beaches and Bases - Google Books

She thinks Egypt is "exotic," the warm weather would be welcome, and cruising down the Nile sounds exciting; but she is nervous about political upheaval in the wake of the overthrow of Egypt's previous regime. The military institution is exposed as a powerful patriarchal institution which women are urged to resist in their overall efforts towards social justice and equal status.Listening carefully and not afraid to admit surprise, Enloe weaves a tapestry of stories that reveal the workings of power from the personal to the political and back. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. The Militarization of Women's Lives, London, Pandora Press; San Francisco, Harper\Collins, 1988 (editions have been published in Finnish and Swedish). Always ahead of the curve, before globalization had achieved cache in academic circles Enloe was there, cajoling Western feminists out of our political parochialism. Ethnic Soldiers: State Security in Divided Societies, London: Penguin Books, 1980; Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1980.

Bananas, Beaches and Bases: A Twenty-five years of Bananas, Beaches and Bases: A

Conversation about the politics of masculinity is quickly dismissed by delegates, suggesting the fear of having their masculinity – and therefore reputation in the world of international relations – examined. No commentator has done more than Cynthia Enloe to explore the numerous roles that ordinary women play in the international system and global political economy -- as industrial and domestic workers; activists; diplomats and soldiers; wives of diplomats and soldiers; sex workers; and much else besides," wrote Adam Jones in his review of Maneuvers in the journal Contemporary Politics. If this is the first time you used this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your Google Drive account. Our resources are crucial for knowledge lovers everywhere—so if you find all these bits and bytes useful, please pitch in.In exposing policymakers’ reliance on false notions of and “femininity and ” and and “masculinity, and ” Enloe dismantles an apparently overwhelming world system, revealing it to be much more fragile and open to change than we think. Maha's Story" talks about an Iraqi woman who, as well as many others, found themselves in a situation where their husband is either dead, divorced, detained, or missing, with children to care for, no social safety nets, meager finances, and no working papers. Women as Chinese businessmen’s mistresses, women sewing clothes for Tommy Hilfiger and washing pesticides off Chiquita’s bananas, women married to CIA operatives, women working in discos around military bases, women auditioning for the Miss World contest, women scrubbing floors in Saudi Arabia, and women lobbying delegates in the corridors of the UN—they observe, they cope, they calculate, they strategize, and sometimes they organize.