Queering IR Constructivism

In Nick Onuf’s (1998: 58) “Constructivism: A User’s Manual,” he suggests that “constructivism is a way of studying social relations – any kind of social relations.” Sexuality theorists Ann Pellegrini and Janet Jakobsen (2005, 432)cargue that “sex is a social relation out of which people can, in their practice of sex, create values along with pleasures, intimacies, kinships, and also pain, sadness, and sometimes loss.” With or without this description, I think it would be largely uncontroversial to contend that one could study sex and sexuality with a constructivist orientation, and that there are productive research questions that could be gained from taking a constructivist approach to the queer in global politics.