Strategic Scepticism and Spatialisation of Power in Feminist Foreign Policy Scholarship: A Critical Cartography

This article conducts a critical cartography of scholarship that engages with postcolonial feminist analysis of Feminist Foreign Policy (FFP). The article develops a concept of ‘Strategic Scepticism’ as a way that postcolonial feminist scholarship meets FFP: a sceptical approach towards Western-originated liberal policies, but strategically sceptic for not rejecting FFP. The article demonstrates that scepticism is seen through the measured approach taken towards FFP, informed by a feminist reluctance to trust state-led progressive policies, and concerns about the co-optation of feminism. Despite this scepticism, the scholarship engages with FFP through four inventive ways that form a part of their strategy that calls for a more inclusive FFP: not limiting FFP analysis to liberal feminist themes; analysing the non-engagement with FFP; scrutinising adoption beyond the FFP label; and studying links with other policy intersections. The critical cartography also reveals that the scholarship reinforces a spatialisation of borders between academia and the community, which maintains the Global North-South hierarchies it seeks to address. To contend with this, the article suggests that the scholarship could employ reflexive and transversal solidarities to actively engage with lesser studied sources of FFP knowledge production. This study provides insights into how ‘strategic scepticism’ in scholarship can both expand and deepen FFP analysis. The article has implications for knowledge production in International Relations by examining the hierarchies created in and by scholarly work.