FTGS offers two awards the Eminent Scholar Award and the Graduate Student Paper Award.

Graduate Student Paper Award

This award, sponsored by Feminist Theory and Gender Studies (FTGS) was established in 1996 to honor the best feminist theory and/or gender studies graduate student paper presented at the current year’s ISA Annual Convention. The award carries a stipend of $500 and comes with a peer-review by the International Feminist Journal of Politics with a prospect for publication.

Nominations may be made by anyone in the profession. We encourage, in particular, discussants and chairs on FTGS panels to let us know about outstanding papers you encountered. Self-nominations are also welcome. The person nominated must have been a student at the time the paper was presented. More information on the student paper award is found here. Information on past award winners is located here.

Graduate Student Paper Award Winner 2012 Announced

It is our pleasure to announce this year’s winner of the FTGS Best Graduate Student paper presented at the Annual ISA Conference in San Diego. The winner is Megan Daigle and her paper entitled, "Writing ‘Prostitute’ Lives: Researching Dissident Sexualities in Contemporary Cuba". The committee found this paper to demonstrate so many of the qualities that we admire in feminist scholarship, including reflexive methodology, careful ethnography, knowledge of empirical case, and knowledge of relevant theory. Congratulations, Megan, on this thoughtful and critically reflective piece. The abstract of the paper is below:

“Ethnographic truths,” according to James Clifford, “are […] inherently partial – committed and incomplete.” In an ethnographic study of the sexual-affective economy of contemporary Cuba, how to best present interviews that were unstructured, contingent and often fleeting posed a particular problem. At times, as an awkward field researcher and a foreigner in Havana, the colonial potential of authorship was readily apparent; at others, it was not, and thus the danger of misappropriation and misrepresentation was even greater. This paper will explore practices of interviewing and writing deployed in an attempt (sometimes futile) to mitigate and interrogate the relationship between researcher and informant across unequal relations of power, sharp economic disparities, and a significant cultural divide. The circumstances under which research was conducted – that is, a political environment of censorship and repression of dissent – will also be included as a strong conditioning factor. Issues of interpretation, (in)translatability, reciprocity, and appropriation will be explored through a discussion of ‘storytelling’ as an ethical practice. Far from merely stylistic writing choices, this practice bears real ethical and political implications for the research produced and for the individual subjects implicated in its production.

Eminent Scholar Panel 2012

FTGS annually honors an eminent scholar in the International Relations sub-field of Feminist Theory and Gender Studies. Through their research, eminent scholars have made a significant impact and have pushed the boundaries of the sub-field. Many FTGS eminent scholars also have distinguished themselves through their commitment to the section and have advanced feminist scholarship through their teaching, mentoring and leadership.

The 2012 Eminent Scholar Panel, left to right: Liz Philipose, Catherine Eschle, Lisa Prügl, Sandy Whitworth, Craig Murphy, Cynthia Enloe

 

FTGS Eminent Scholars/Critical Scholarship Panels

 

2012 Sandra Whitworth

2011 Christine Sylvester

2010 Conversations in Queering IR. FTGS Critical Scholarship panel (Chair: Laura Sjoberg, participants: Catia Confortini, Helen Kinsella, Lauren Wilcox, Meghana V. Nayak)

2009 Post-colonial Feminist IR: A FTGS Critical Scholarship Recognition Panel  (Chair: Heather Turcotte, discussants: Marianne Franklin, Sheila Nair, participants: Anna M. Agathangelou, Geeta Chowdry, Lily Ling, Shirin Rai)

2008 none

2007 Anne Sisson Runyan

2006 Jane Parpart

2005 Zillah Eisenstein

2004 Spike Peterson

2003 Jindy Pettman

2002 Maria Patricia Fernandez-Kelly

2001 Sandra Harding

2000 Millennium Reflection Panel (Chair: J. Ann Tickner, Participants: J. Ann Tickner, Lily Ling, Christine Sylvester, Marysia Zalewski, Jindy Pettmann)

1999 Berenice Carroll

1998 Reading/Writing Feminist International Relations (Chair: Margaret Leahy, discussants: Katherine Moon, J. Ann Tickner, Lily Ling, Jacqui True, Mark Neufeld)

1997 J. Ann Tickner

1996 Feminist Theory and Gender Studies Retrospect and Prospect (Chair: Francine D’Amico, discussants: Spike Peterson, Anne, Runyan, Christine Sylvester, Sandra Whitworth, Mary Ann Tetrault)

1995 Jean Bethke Elshtain

1994 Cynthia Enloe