Afterword

Abstract

Jindy Pettman’s remarkable career as a scholar, teacher, and activist, to which this book pays tribute, is reflected in these words with which she concluded her groundbreaking article, “Gendering International Relations,” published in the Australian Journal of International Affairs in 1993. In this article, Pettman asks how we might take women’s experiences seriously and treat women as players in their own right on the stage of international politics. Asking, Where are the women? she was one of the first feminist scholars to bring their invisibility, and the resistance to gender analysis in the discipline of international relations (IR), to our attention. Pettman dedicated her scholarship to overcoming these disciplinary shortcomings. In her chapter in this volume, she tells us that she sees IR as the bookends of her career—beginning with a Ph.D. in International Relations in 1971, and returning to a more systematic engagement with the discipline in the 1990s. Yet all Jindy Pettman’s work is engaged with global and local issues that should be included within the boundaries of IR.

Often what is best and most closely shared is not primarily with co-nationals, though some may be: but rather with those who share political alliances and theoretical passions, whatever their particular national or cultural background. Leaving home can unsettle or threaten us, but more often, in my experience, it builds learnings and relations that are liberating and immensely enjoyable—even though it is still good to return home, for a rest.¹