Laura Sjoberg

Laura Sjoberg
Born 1979 (age 38–39)
Nationality American
Academic background
Alma mater
Thesis Gendering Just War[1] (2004)
Doctoral advisor J. Ann Tickner[2]
Academic work
Discipline Political science
Sub-discipline International relations
School or tradition Feminism
Institutions
Main interests
Website www.laurasjoberg.com

Laura Sjoberg (born 1979) is an American feminist scholar of international relations and international security. Her work specializes in gendered interpretations of just war theory, feminist security studies, and women's violence in global politics.[3]

She is author (with Caron Gentry) of Mothers, Monsters, Whores: Women's Violence in Global Politics (Zed Books 2007), Gender, Justice, and the Wars in Iraq, (Lexington Books 2006), and Gender, War, & Conflict (Polity Press, 2014). She is editor of Gender and International Security: Feminist Perspectives (Routledge 2010), Rethinking the 21st Century: New Problems, Old Solutions (Zed Books 2009, with Amy Eckert), Feminist International Relations: Conversations about the Past, Present, and Future (Routledge 2011, with J. Ann Tickner), Gender, War, and Militarism: Feminist Perspectives (Praeger Security International, with Sandra Via), and Women, Gender, and Terrorism (University of Georgia Press 2012, with Caron Gentry).

Life and career

Education

Sjoberg is an Associate Professor of Political Science and affiliate faculty in women's studies at the University of Florida. She has previously taught and researched at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, Duke University, Boston College, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Brandeis University, and Merrimack College. She holds a Doctor of Philosophy degree in international relations and gender studies from the University of Southern California and a law degree from Boston College.

Background

Sjoberg is currently homebase editor of the International Feminist Journal of Politics. She serves as the Chair of the International Studies Association Committee on the Status of Women. She has given invited presentations at the University of Florida Law School, Harvard University, Lancaster University, Virginia State University, the University of Virginia, Hollins University, the University of Pennsylvania, Tufts University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Michigan, the University of Minnesota, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Southern California and Duke University, as well as at meetings of the International Studies Association, the American Political Science Association, and the National Women's Studies Association.

Her work has been published in International Studies Quarterly, the International Feminist Journal of Politics, Security Studies, International Studies Perspectives, International Relations, Politics and Gender, International Studies Review, Feminist Review, International Politics, International Political Sociology, and other academic journals and edited volumes. She is editor of book series at New York University Press on "Gender and Political Violence", and at Oxford University Press on "Gender and International Relations" (with J. Ann Tickner).

Books

Gender, War & Conflict

Sjoberg's book Gender, War, & Conflict examines war using a gendered lens. Sjoberg applies this gendered lens in two ways: examining the technicalities of war, and examining the theory of war. She critically analyzes the roles that men and women have in war and calls into question the unseen gendered dynamics. Sjoberg expresses that the roles women are expected to play during war time is typically the wife or mother, the "beautiful soul"[4] in need of saving, the sex worker, the victims of wartime rape, or the female war criminal. Sjoberg demonstrates the way masculinities function in war, examining the ways that masculinity and honour play a role in the reasons men go to war. She provides insight on how gender stereotypes perpetuates the saviour complex of masculinity and its relationship with protecting the feminized nation from attack. Ultimately, she invites readers to look at war as a continuum[4] that extends beyond the confines of traditional warfare. Sjoberg argues that taking a continuum approach allows us to broaden our scope when dealing with war and take more of a human security based approach – looking at things like access to food and security through a gendered lens.[4]

Mothers, Monsters, Whores

Sjoberg's Mother, Monsters, Whores: Women's Violence in Global Politics co-authored by Caron E. Gentry provides insight on women's violence in global politics. Sjoberg presents three archetypes of women who commit violent acts in the political sphere: mothers, monsters and whores.[5] The mother archetype explains violent crimes committed by females as being an act of revenge on a person or group that has harmed her family, stemming from her maternal desire to protect. The monster archetype is essentially the anomaly to the traditional woman who would not commit violence, but does because there is something biologically and/or psychologically wrong with her.[5] Finally, the whore archetype explains that crimes of violence committed by women are by failed or disposable females who are easily controlled.[5]

The gendered lens employed by Sjoberg highlights the manner of which the three archetypes negates any of the autonomy or agency in the female perpetrator of the violence.[5] Some of the examples discussed in the book, like the Chechen "Black Widows", portray these women as angry mothers avenging their families, when frankly they are also autonomous women who have suffered through more than a decade of conflict in their struggle for independence.[5] The authors argue that while there may be a place for these three categories, the oversimplification of violent women in discourses of global politics is more complex and goes beyond a mother, monster and whore.[5] Both Sjoberg and Caron Gentry demonstrate that by confining women into stereotypes and categories delegitimizes the actual political context of their actions.

Edited collections

  • Interpretive Quantification: Methodological Explorations for Critical and Constructivist IR, with J. Samuel Barkin (University of Michigan Press, 2017)[6]

Published works

  • Sjoberg, Laura. 2006. Gender, Justice, and the Wars in Iraq. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
  • Sjoberg, Laura. 2006. The Gendered Realities of the Immunity Principle: Why Gender Analysis Needs Feminism. International Studies Quarterly 50(4):889-910.
  • Sjoberg, Laura. 2007. Agency, Militarized Femininity, and Enemy Others. International Feminist Journal of Politics 9(1):82-101.
  • Sjoberg, Laura. 2007. Gender and Personal Pedagogy. International Studies Perspectives 8(3):336-339.
  • Sjoberg, Laura and Caron Gentry. 2007. Mothers, Monsters, Whores: Women's Violence in Global Politics. London: Zed Books.
  • Sjoberg, Laura. 2008. Why Just War Needs Feminism Now More Than Ever. International Politics 45(1): 1-18.
  • Sjoberg, Laura and Caron Gentry. 2008. Reduced to Bad Sex: Narratives of Violent Women from the Bible to the War on Terror. International Relations 22(1): 5-23.
  • Sjoberg, Laura and Caron Gentry. 2009. "Profiling Terror: Gendering the Strategic Logic of Suicide Terror and other Narratives." Austrian Journal of Political Science, 2008/2: 181-196.
  • Sjoberg, Laura. 2008. Scaling IR Theory: Geography's Contribution to Where IR Takes Place. International Studies Review 10(3): 471-499.
  • Sjoberg, Laura. 2009. Feminist Interrogations of Terrorism/Terrorism Studies. International Relations 23(1).
  • Sjoberg, Laura. 2009. Introduction to Security Studies: Feminist Contributions. Security Studies 18(2): 183-213.
  • Sjoberg, Laura. 2010. Women Fighters and the 'Beautiful Soul' Narrative. International Review of the Red Cross, 92(877) (March 2010): 53-68.
  • Sjoberg, Laura and Amy Eckert, eds. 2009. Rethinking the 21st Century: New Problems, Old Solutions. London: Zed Books.
  • Sjoberg, Laura, ed. 2010. Gender and International Security: Feminist Perspectives. New York: Routledge.
  • Sjoberg, Laura and Sandra Via, eds. 2010. Gender, War, and Militarism: Feminist Perspectives. New York: Praeger Security International.
  • Sjoberg, Laura. 2011. Gender, the State, and War Redux: Feminist International Relations Across the 'Levels of Analysis'. International Relations, March 2011, 25(1): 108-134.
  • Sjoberg, Laura and J. Ann Tickner, eds. 2011. Feminist International Relations: Conversations about the Past, Present, and Future. New York: Routledge.
  • Sjoberg, Laura and Caron Gentry, eds. 2011. Women, Gender, and Terrorism. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.
  • Sjoberg, Laura and Jessica Peet. 2011. A(nother) Dark Side of the Protection Racket: Targeting Women in Wars. International Feminist Journal of Politics 13(2) (July 2011):163-82.
  • Sjoberg, Laura. 2011. Emotion, Risk, and Feminist International Relations Research. International Studies Review, 13(4) (December 2011): 699-703.
  • Sjoberg, Laura. 2011. Looking Forward: Conceptualizing Feminist Security Studies," Politics and Gender 7(4) (December 2011): 600-4.
  • Sjoberg, Laura. 2012. Gender Hierarchy, International Structure, and the Causes of War. International Theory 4(1) (2012): 1-38.
  • Sjoberg, Laura and Laura Shepherd. Trans-Bodies in/of Wars: Cis-privilege and Contemporary Security Strategies. Feminist Review, 101 (July 2012):5-23.
  • Sjoberg, Laura. 2014. Gender, War, and Conflict. Polity Press.
  • Sjoberg, Laura and Caron Gentry. 2015. Beyond Mothers, Monsters, Whores: Thinking about Women's Violence in Global Politics. London: Zed Books

See also

References

Citations

Works cited

Barkin, J. Samuel; Sjoberg, Laura, eds. (2017). Interpretive Quantification: Methodological Explorations for Critical and Constructivist IR. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press. doi:10.3998/mpub.7361329. ISBN 978-0-472-12265-3. JSTOR 10.3998/mpub.7361329.
Sjoberg, Laura (2004). Gendering Just War: Feminisms, Ethics, and the Wars in Iraq, 1990–2003 (PhD thesis). Los Angeles: University of Southern California. OCLC 61517189.
 ———  (2008). "Scaling IR Theory: Geography's Contribution to Where IR Takes Place". International Studies Review. 10 (3): 471–499. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2486.2008.00801.x. ISSN 1468-2486. JSTOR 25481989.
 ———  (2014). Gender, War, and Conflict. Cambridge, England: Polity Press.
Sjoberg, Laura; Gentry, Caron (2015). Beyond Mothers, Monsters, Whores: Thinking about Women's Violence in Global Politics. London: Zed Books.
Tickner, J. Ann; Sjoberg, Laura, eds. (2011). Feminism and International Relations: Conversations about the Past, Present and Future. Abingdon, England: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-72479-4.
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