International relations (IR) are the interactions among sovereign states. The scientific study of those interactions is also referred to as international studies, international politics, or international affairs. In a broader sense, the study of IR, in addition to multilateral relations, concerns all activities among states—such as war, diplomacy, trade, and foreign policy—as well as relations with and among other international actors, such as intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), international legal bodies, and multinational corporations (MNCs). There are several schools of thought within IR, of which the most prominent are realism, liberalism, and constructivism.
Patricia Hill Collins is an American academic specializing in race, class, and gender. She is a distinguished university professor of sociology emerita at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is also the former head of the Department of African-American Studies at the University of Cincinnati, and a past president of the American Sociological Association (ASA). Collins served in 2009 as the 100th president of the ASA – the first African-American woman to hold this position.
Jennifer Mary Welsh is a Canadian professor of international relations, currently working as the Canada 150 Research Chair in Global Governance and Security at McGill University. Welsh is the Director of the Centre for International Peace and Security Studies at McGill's Max Bell School of Public Policy, and a co-director of the Canadian Research Network on Women, Peace and Security. Welsh is a frequent commentator in Canadian media on foreign affairs.
Cynthia Holden Enloe is an American political theorist, feminist writer, and professor. She is best known for her work on gender and militarism and for her contributions to the field of feminist international relations. She has also influenced the field of feminist political geography, with feminist geopolitics in particular.
Amrita Basu is an American academic and political scientist. She currently is a professor at Amherst College where she holds affiliations in the departments of Political Science, Sexuality, Women's, & Gender Studies, Asian Languages & Civilizations, and Black Studies.
Feminism is a broad term given to works of those scholars who have sought to bring gender concerns into the academic study of international politics and who have used feminist theory and sometimes queer theory to better understand global politics and international relations as a whole.
Cynthia Perrin Schneider is an American diplomat and educator from Pennsylvania. She was the 61st United States Ambassador to the Netherlands from June 29, 1998 to June 17, 2001.
The Mortara Center for International Studies is an academic research center at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. As part of Georgetown's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, the Mortara Center organizes and co-sponsors lectures, seminars, and conferences and provides support for research and publications on international affairs. The current Director of the Mortara Center is Professor and Chair of the Georgetown University International Theory and Research Seminar (GUITARS) Abraham L. Newman. Past Directors include Kathleen R. McNamara, John McNeill, Carol Lancaster, Charles Kupchan, and John Ikenberry. Former United States Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is the Michael and Virginia Mortara Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy. The Mortara Center was established through a gift from the Michael and Virginia Mortara Foundation.
Meenakshi Gopinath is an Indian educationist, political scientist, writer and a former principal of Lady Shri Ram College, New Delhi. She is the founder and incumbent director of the Women in Security Conflict Management and Peace (WISCOMP), a non governmental organization promoting peace and socio-political leadership among the women of South Asia and a former member of the National Security Advisory Board, the first woman to serve the Government of India agency. She has served as a member of the selection panel of the Lokpal, a legal body which has jurisdiction over the legislators and government officials of India. The Government of India awarded her the fourth highest civilian honour of the Padma Shri, in 2007, for her contributions to Indian educational sector. She is a co-editor of the International Feminist Journal of Politics, the leading journal of feminist international relations and global politics.
Rosemarie "Rosie" Tong is an American feminist philosopher. The author of 1998's Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction, an overview of the major traditions of feminist theory, she is the emeritus distinguished professor of health care ethics in the Department of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte.
V. Spike Peterson is a professor of international relations in the School of Government and Public Policy at the University of Arizona, and affiliated faculty in the Department of Gender and Women's Studies, the Institute for LGBT Studies, International Studies, Human Rights Practice Program, and the Center for Latin American Studies. Her cross-disciplinary research and teaching are focused on international relations theory, gender and politics, global political economy, and contemporary social theory. Her recent publications examine the sex/gender and racial dynamics of global inequalities and insecurities and develop critical histories of ancient and modern state formation and Anglo-European imperialism in relation to marriage, migration, citizenship and nationalism. Peterson is "considered to be among the most internationally important senior scholars currently working at the intersections of International Relations, Feminist and Queer Theory, and of International Political Economy."
Kathy E. Ferguson is an American author, political theorist, educator, and Fulbright Grant recipient. She is professor of political science and women's studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.
Zahra' Langhi is a feminist, Libyan exile, human rights activist, peace activist, and expert on gender, conflict resolution, and peace building.
Rekha Pande is a Professor Emeritus of history and women's studies at the Henry Martin Institute, an International Centre for Research, Interfaith Relations and Reconciliation, Hyderabad. She is also currently the Director of the Society for Empowerment through Environment Development (SEED). She is the former Head of the Centre for Women's Studies and the former Head of the Department of History at the University of Hyderabad, India. She has also served as a Director Centre for Women's Studies at Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU), Hyderabad. As a feminist historian, Pande researches the theoretical and methodological problems of reconstructing women's history and understanding the roots of women's subordination within the South Asian context. She also attempts to examine the varied historical contexts at the regional/local levels and explain the reproduction and subordination of women at the national and global scale—in various related, albeit different, contemporary contexts. She is an academic activist also associated with the women's movement in India.
Tal Dekel is an art historian, curator and academic. Her work deals with modern and contemporary art in Israel and around the world. Her research focuses on issues of visual culture, analyzing its interrelations with race, class, gender, sexuality and nationality, while using feminist theories and transnationalism. Her recent research revolves around case studies of women immigrants from the Former Soviet Union, Ethiopia and the Philippines in Israel.
Margo Okazawa-Rey, is an American professor emerita, educator, writer, and social justice activist, who is most known as a founding member of the Combahee River Collective, and for her transnational feminist advocacy.
Roberta Guerrina is a British political scientist. She is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Bristol. Guerrina studies the gendered effects of public policies and the way that policies are shaped by gendered hierarchies, with a particular focus on European Union policies pertaining to defense and security. She has also written extensively about the effects that Brexit will have on women, about the politics of motherhood, and about European identity.
Marilyn ('Lyn') Ossome is an academic, specialising in feminist political theory and feminist political economics. She is currently Senior Research Associate of at the University of Johannesburg and a member of the advisory board for the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa, amongst other accolades. She is an editorial board member of Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, and in 2021, she co-edited the volume Labour Questions in the Global South. She serves on the executive committee for the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA). She is the author of Gender, Ethnicity and Violence in Kenya’s Transitions to Democracy: States of Violence.
Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso is a Nigerian university professor whose work focuses on African women in post-conflict contexts; African refugees, gender and politics; democracy; and African politics. She has published multiple books on women's issues in Africa, an editor of the Journal of Contemporary African Studies and the Journal of International Politics and Development.
