| Summary/Abstract |
Living through global transformations – including our current pandemic – requires imagination to see through to the other side. How can Australian IR scholars contribute new understandings of the prospects for global change and security when they are so sorely needed? This essay reflects on two themes: First, the important role of Australian IR scholars and students in theorising change and envisioning alternative futures in a national context less constrained by the trappings of power and enduring forced isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic; and second, the significance of increasing gender diversity in political leadership for future transformations in international relations. A productive feminist subfield of IR scholarship has flourished in Australian universities, however, navigation of post-COVID global politics requires all IR scholars to critically examine the gendered games that political leaders, institutions, inter-state and global civil society actors play. Such gendered games both fuel and mitigate the dynamics of conflict and insecurity.
|