Launching the Center for Gender in Politics at HAPP

Shortly after joining Queen's University Belfast last year, Dr. Maria-Adriana Deiana and I launched the Centre for Gender in Politics. More about the Centre from our website:

The Centre for Gender in Politics serves the growing community of feminist scholars and activists in international studies who apply a gendered lens to understand challenges in global politics. Research conducted at the centre investigates the centrality of gender, in intersection with other categories such as race, class, sexuality and ability, in shaping local, national and global dynamics. Inspired by Cynthia Enloe’s famous slogan “the personal is political, is international”, we argue that these intersections matter in shaping the political, from everyday experiences to political institutions, from cultural production to “high-level” strategies for global security.  The Centre will consider how gender impacts politics in Northern Ireland, foreign policy, peace and security, reproductive justice, responding to climate change and the day to day lives of students at Queen’s University.

Since the Centre launched we've also launched a blog where we include student blogs and information about past events. Our Research at the Centre focuses on three main themes, Gender in NI Politics, Feminist Peace and Security and Feminism(s) and the Politics of Crisis. We speak about this work in Episode 3 as part of the Peace and Conflict podcast which you can check out here.

Amid continuing crisis furthered by a global pandemic, the work of feminist activists to promote a gender perspective is more important than ever. As we head into our second year of work of the Centre, we will bring a particular attention to how solidarity across movements during times of crisis to better inform intersectional policy and interdisciplinary research.