Book Reviews editorial

The books reviewed in this issue of IFJP examine how political order, global governance, and global power relations are structured by gendered, racial, and colonial hierarchies. These contributions highlight how colonial legacies and racial stereotypes shape international law on conflict-related sexual violence as well as everyday life in Brazil, and how hegemonic masculinities and heteronormativity underpin militarism and contribute to legitimizing the global arms trade. Seeking opportunities for change, the authors of these books are also queering dominant narratives, norms, and institutions by, for example, exploring how justice and human rights can be mobilized differently, and how the state could be made to act in the interests of marginalized groups, such as queer people.

The first book reviewed in this issue is A Queer Theory of the State by Samuel Clowes Huneke. In her review, Georgia Peters discusses how the work critically re-evaluates the negative and monolithic view within queer theory of the state as a source of violence. Instead, Huneke suggests “queering the state” through embracing a more nuanced understanding of the inherent contradictions and complexities of the state and recognizing that it can be pressured to act in favor of marginalized communities. As Peters outlines, Huneke’s work argues for a pragmatic approach to queer theory that seeks tangible solutions and engagements with the state for the advancement of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, intersex, and asexual (LGBTQIA) rights. By exploring the intersections of queer theory with state power, Huneke illustrates the limitations of a purely oppositional stance and proposes a vision of a “queer state” that leverages anti-normativity toward constructive ends, emphasizing the importance of material outcomes within these debates. Peters argues that this book represents a significant contribution to queer theory, challenging scholars to integrate critique with actionable strategies for social change within the state framework.

Masculinities, Gender and International Relations by Terrell Carver and Laura Lyddon explores the interplay between masculinity, militarism, and the international arms trade, illustrating how gendered and sexualized norms underpin global power structures. The authors provide a comprehensive analysis of the legal sector of the international arms trade, highlighting how nested hierarchies of masculinity contribute to its legitimacy. Through detailed examinations of arms dealers’ practices (particularly their social media advertising strategies) and international arms fairs, the book offers insights into the ways in which masculinity is constructed and utilized in international relations (IR). Reviewer Louise Pears argues that the book stands as a valuable addition to scholarship in the fields of feminist IR and critical military studies, urging further investigation into the gendered dynamics of militarism and the arms trade. The work is positioned as essential reading for scholars and students interested in the intersections of gender, sexuality, and international politics, challenging mainstream IR discourses to consider the gendered aspects of global power relations.

Rana M. Jaleel’s The Work of Rape critically examines the international legal efforts to prosecute gendered violence, arguing that these efforts often inadvertently perpetuate racial and economic inequalities by focusing on specific narratives of rape that align with the interests of Global North feminists and states. The book highlights how the recognition of rape as a tool of genocide and torture in conflicts such as those in Yugoslavia and Rwanda, while championed as a victory for feminism, serves colonial interests and obscures other forms of sexual violence, such as those committed by the United States military or against Indigenous women. Jaleel introduces the concept of “law beyond law” to explore the broader social impacts of this legal definition, showing how it can reinforce colonial, gendered, and racialized power dynamics. However, reviewer Sarah Nandi notes that despite Jaleel’s acknowledgment of the contributions from Global South feminists to shaping international law against rape, their struggles and narratives are not the focus of the book. As such, it may inadvertently suggest that these legal frameworks are only the domain of elite, white feminists. Nevertheless, Nandi argues that Jaleel’s work urges scholars to reconsider who benefits from prevailing narratives of justice and human rights when it comes to the political struggles regarding the prosecution of rape.

Finally, Doreen Joy Gordon’s ethnographic study Blackness and Social Mobility in Brazil: Contemporary Transformations delves into the complex dynamics of race, class, and identity among the Black middle class in Salvador, Bahia, highlighting the persistent influence of racism on their social mobility and identity formation. Gordon critiques the Brazilian myth of racial democracy, revealing how racialization processes and the construction of difference deeply impact Black individuals’ efforts to be upwardly mobile, often forcing them to navigate and redefine racial and class stereotypes. The book explores the roles of family and community support networks, particularly focusing on matrifocality and strategies such as child circulation to provide better opportunities for the next generation, despite the risks of perpetuating inequalities and trauma. Gordon also discusses the Brazilian Black movement’s efforts to challenge aesthetic hierarchies and celebrate Black beauty, addressing the nuanced realities of racial boundary crossing and the mixed messages around race and identity. Despite its insights, according to reviewer Camila dos Santos, the work could be enriched through deeper engagement with Brazilian Black feminist thought to more fully address the complexities of race, gender, and social mobility in Brazil, highlighting the ongoing struggle for racial equity and the critical contributions of Black feminists in shaping these discourses.

In the Book Reviews section, we focus on books that explore feminist politics and gender relations in a global frame. We aim to include multi-disciplinary, cross-border, and critical feminist scholarship. The section includes three types of contributions: book reviews, review essays, and essays that rethink the canon of feminist scholarship. Book reviews engage with an individual, recently published piece of work, briefly describing its content and critically evaluating and locating its contributions to global feminist scholarship and to particular bodies of literature. Review essays discuss several texts on the same theme and bring them into conversation with each other, aiming either to explore a recent debate or emerging research field that has generated a range of new publications, or to survey the best of the literature covering a more established area of research. Essays that rethink the canon aim to re-evaluate the canon of feminist global political scholarship and its boundaries, and provide the opportunity to also engage with books that are not recently published. These essays may aim to critically rethink the established literature on a particular topic in light of recent events or new publications, or to engage with books that have been marginalized by existing disciplinary boundaries and explain why these ought to be essential reading for feminists working on global issues.

If you are interested in submitting a review essay or a review, please contact the Book Reviews Editors, Elisabeth Olivius, Ebru Demir, and Katrina Lee-Koo. Reviews and essays need to be written in English, but the texts they review do not.

For further information, please refer to the journal’s FAQ page at https://www.ifjpglobal.org/submit-to-us/#anchor_book_reviews_shortcut.