A Conversation with Women of Color in Comparative Politics Network

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Session Description

Studies have documented individual and institutional discrimination faced by women of color (WOC) scholars in Political Science broadly, and the field of Comparative Politics (CP) more specifically. WOC in CP face the ascriptions of foreigner status to those of non-white and Global South ancestry, the misogynoir and erasure confronting Black women, and the disappearance of Indigenous women who join with the more mundane experience of being the only one – in home departments, in graduate school, on conference panels, and even in Americanist dominant minority networks. Meanwhile, those based in the Global South are further professionally marginalized and face further institutional challenges. The proposed panel seeks to examine the distinct structural and systemic challenges confronting WOC in the field of Comparative Politics and envision how to sustain a formal WOC comparativists network to address and respond to them. The roundtable will bring together the personal experiences of scholars and academics (across ranks, physical and structural locations, and research topics and methods) interrogating the intersection between gender and race and epistemology and methodology in CP; facing racism, sexism, and neocolonialism in the classroom; and examining gender and race in the research field sites, with attention to the varied gender and racial ethnic dynamics faced by U.S. based versus Global South scholars. The discussions will put forward thinking strategies to confront racism and micro- and macro-aggressions in conceptions of “collegiality”; demand respect in the department and discipline; and navigate tenure across types of academic institutions and post-tenure strategies.

Sub Unit

• Division 11: Comparative Politics

Chair

• Terri E Givens University of British Columbia

Presenters

• Nermin Allam Rutgers University

• Natasha Behl Arizona State University

• Abby B. Cordova University of Notre Dame

• Justine Davis University of Michigan

• Roselyn Hsueh Temple University

• Andrea Pena-Vasquez University of Pittsburgh

• Shan-Jan Sarah Liu University of Edinburgh