perm fails –new feminist methodologies must be investigated in the borderlands to be truly transgressive

‘Living in the Margins’: Why the Asia-Pacific Region? In probing both the ontological and methodological boundaries of international relations, critical feminist IR scholars find themselves located (or exiled) on the margins of the discipline. An innovative shift in this collection, however, exists in the recognition that feminist IR sits on the margins of international relations by choice. We argue that the margins of IR have not only produced exciting and challenging academic work, but also offer a productive and provocative location. It is these ‘borderlands’ that provide a fresh perspective and provoke the critical distance that is necessary for feminist IR scholars to engage both the tradition of IR and the global politics extending beyond its boundaries. It is within the margins of IR that these innovative explorations of the boundaries of the global take place. Here feminist IR scholars investigate new methodologies37 and issues not considered within the confines of traditional approaches to the discipline. These new paths are illuminated through transgressions into different ways of thinking and seeing the world. Moreover, the margins are perhaps the most useful location for this collection as it seeks to probe two issues marginalized by IR: gender and the Asia-Pacific. The Asia-Pacific region reveals the familiar features of forced marginalization. Traditional IR’s focus on the Asia-Pacific, in scholarship produced in North America, Europe, and Australia, has primarily offered state-based perspectives and promoted or analyzed each state’s geopolitical, strategic, and economic ambitions in the region.38 In her analysis of this dynamic, Jindy Pettman points out how the politics of difference plays a large role in shaping the West’s, particularly Australia’s, relations with Asia.39 These exclusionary approaches by traditional IR contribute to the conceptualization of ‘East and West’ that simultaneously tells the story of ‘who we are’ and ‘who is not us.’ This, in turn, serves to marginalize the Asia-Pacific within IR and stifles emancipatory possibilities for those who call this region home. While a number of critical IR scholars are attentive to this bias,40 the gendered political discourse marginalizes minorities, particularly women (but also ‘colonized and therefore feminized’ men)41 for a second time. As such, critical scholarship of the region is attentive to the marginality of poverty-stricken com- munities, refugees, internally displaced populations, and religious and ethnic minorities.42 These groups are marginal because of their location on the boundaries of marginalized states, and are often silenced because of power inequality. A critical feminist investigation of this space further reveals that gender intersects with all of these marginalized identities. The dual marginalization of women (as members of marginalized communities and as members of the disadvantaged gender) makes the struggle for emancipatory and empowered ‘feminist futures’ even more complex.43