From Unity to Divergence and Back Again: Security and Economy in Feminist International Relations

This brief essay contends that looking at the space where “security” and “political economy” questions intersect is one of the most fruitful directions for researchers in the field, and provides a value-added over the analysis that either “lens” would provide individually. The piece uses an example from my research on prostitution of male members of the US military to explore the utility of understanding the interlocked nature of security and political economy in feminist scholarship on global politics, politically, analytically, intellectually, and normatively. It concludes by arguing that a re-unification of FSS and FPE is a productive and intellectually essential direction.