Gendering the Nation-State explores the gendered dimensions of a fundamental organizational unit in social and political science – the nation-state. Yasmeen Abu-Laban has drawn together work by both high-profile and emerging scholars to rescue gender from the margins of theoretical discussions on the nation, the state, public policy, and citizenship. Contributors bring the insights of feminist analysis to bear on three relationships central to popular and policy discussions in contemporary Canada and beyond: gender and nation, gender and state processes, and gender and citizenship.
Gendering the Nation-State employs a comparative framework and builds on three decades of multidisciplinary work. Nuanced and wide-ranging, the collection crosses and challenges physical, theoretical, and disciplinary borders.
Yasmeen Abu-Laban is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Alberta. Widely published in the areas of difference and citizenship, she is co-author of Selling Diversity: Immigration, Multiculturalism, Employment Equity, and Globalization.
Contributors: Yasmeen Abu-Laban, Caroline Andrew, Janine Brodie, Louise Chappell, Maya Eichler, Jane Jenson, Paul Kershaw, Judy Rebick, Marian Sawer, Francesca Scala, Jackie F. Steele, Linda Trimble, Jill Vickers, and Shauna Wilton
…political scientists and other social scientists will benefit from reading Gendering the Nation-State. It contributes to the breaking down of boundaries in political science and clearly connects theories to both empirical knowledge and the political outcomes that affect women directly.
The 14 essayists in this book have brilliantly analyzed gender and nation, gender and state processes and gender and citizenship. This is a scholarly book showing the way to justice, equality and understanding for the role of women in the state.
This is an excellent collection. While its main focus is clearly on gender and the state, the book makes important contributions to our understanding of nationalism, comparative politics, neoliberalism, postcolonialism, risk society and the role of transnational actors and NGOs. The collection clearly establishes that analyzing gender is not just a matter of “adding” insights to existing analyses but that gendered perspectives often fundamentally challenge the way in which traditional categories and analyses are constructed. As Yasmeen Abu-Laban makes clear in her introduction, the collection “is a response to a disciplinary incompleteness in political science.