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International Politics of the Body

Module description

This module will equip you with conceptual and analytical tools to think critically about diverse global bodily practices and norms. You will examine feminist and multicultural approaches to understanding challenges to human rights internationally and consider what should be prioritised in different contexts: local norms or individual rights.

You will take a critical approach to norms and expectations about people’s bodies while researching and discussing challenging real-world bodily practices, such as, early marriage, wartime rape, and female genital cutting/mutilation. You will make normative and interpretative arguments about the practices in written assessments.

You will explore questions and themes around contentious expectations about human bodies, such as, the politicisation of religious dress codes in different international contexts, the treatment of intersex people’s bodies internationally, international reproductive rights, disability and marginalisation.

Students who have taken POL2124 will be well-suited to the module, but it is not obligatory to have studied POL2124. It is an applied political philosophy module.

Module aims - intentions of the module

The aim is to enable you to think critically about the norms and practices impacting on people’s bodies in the international context.

You will be engaging with arguments in favour of human rights and those defending cultural/group practices which will help to give you a broader capacity for understanding how people and their bodies are affected by policies, norms, and practices internationally.  

You will be challenged to do research into real-world bodily practices, and to apply theoretical literature to the practices.

The written assessments will help develop crucial analytical skills that can be transferred to employment requiring research into real-world events impacting on human rights.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Understand theoretical approaches to contentious bodily practices
• 2. To develop arguments about real-world bodily practices and norms

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 3. Analysis of political approaches to human bodies
• 4. Analysis of international policies, norms, and institutions

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 5. Guided independent research
• 6. Analytical writing skills

Syllabus plan

Part 1.

Theoretical approaches to understanding bodies in context. In this part of the module you will engage with debates addressing tensions between individual rights and cultural norms, including but not limited to, multiculturalism and liberalism, feminist approaches to international political issues, transnational and multicultural challenges to western feminist discourse

Part 2.

The second part of the module will get deeper into discussing different bodily norms and practices that challenge human rights commitments. The topics will include practices such as wartime sexual violence, child marriage, intersex genital mutilation/modification, FGC/M, sex trafficking.

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Claudia Card, “Rape as a Weapon of War”, Hypatia (1996)
• Karisa Cloward, When Norms Collide; Local responses to activism against female genital mutilation and early marriage (2015)
• Serene Khader, Decolonizing Universalism; A transnational feminist ethic (2019)
• Serene Khader, Adaptive Preferences and Women’s empowerment (2011)
• Paul Kirby, “The body weaponized; War, sexual violence and the uncanny”, Security Dialogue (2020)
• Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Feminism without borders; decolonizing theory, practicing solidarity (2003)
• Jaya Sagade, Child Marriage in India; socio-legal and human rights dimensions (2012)
• Jaya Sagade and Christine Forster, Women’s Human Rights in India (2019)
• Celeste E. Orr, Cripping Intersex; disability culture and politics (2022)

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE – Faculty to provide hyperlink to appropriate pages
• Bharti Chhibber, “Women’s Rights are Human Rights”, World Affairs; The Journal of International Issues (2018) https://www.jstor.org/stable/48520052

Key words search

Bodily practices, Human Rights, Feminist thought, International Norms, Violence Against Women and Girls