Forum: Searching for a Global Solidarity: A Collective Auto-Ethnography of Early-Career Women Researchers in the Asia-Pacific

Abstract

This forum critically reflects on discrimination faced by early-career women international relations (IR) scholars in the Asia-Pacific region in their workplaces and beyond. By taking a self-ethnographic perspective, six contributors from five countries provide an engaging overview of difficulties they face in their everyday lives. Against the backdrop of this diverse and globalizing region, the contributors are all academic migrants in search of employment and learning opportunities within the Asia-Pacific region and beyond. They lead migratory lives by frequently crossing ideational and material boundaries to contribute to a more diverse IR knowledge base, and they encounter numerous difficulties and forms of discrimination. This forum has two aims. First, in reflecting on the contributors’ own lived experiences, it highlights the diversity of issues faced by early-career women scholars in this region. Second, it calls for novel, more inclusive forms of solidarity that appreciates diversity as plurality across any divides.