Description
This paper looks at how feminist thinkers have conceptualized change towards nuclear disarmament. We start by mapping how the existing feminist literature on nuclear weapons has implicitly or explicitly imagined change, whether in terms of agendas for gender equality or those focused on anti-militarism. We suggest that more attention needs to be paid to processes of change, alongside a focus on the end goal of disarmament. Aiming to open up the nuclear field, we revisit historical and sociological feminist debates about change more broadly, beyond the nuclear sphere, which can expand our theoretical toolkit and offer inspiration for feminist conceptualizations of nuclear disarmament. Rather than developing a universal feminist theory of nuclear change, we consider the benefits of feminist-oriented, context-specific and reflexive explorations of change that simultaneously reflect on the material and discursive realms of nuclear weapons.
