Contesting the logics of protection in international security: modern-day parrhesia amongst dissident female protectors

The thesis examines different international figures of dissident female protectors, who resist, challenge, disrupt and/or reinforce the multiple ‘logics of protection’ of/in International Security. Locating the existing approaches to, and explorations of, the notion of ‘logic of masculinist protection’ in feminist security studies, the thesis seeks to expand and pluralise this work by arguing that logics of protection are, in fact, plural and intersecting. It investigates how such logics rely on multiple power relations of not only gender, but also race, sexuality, (settler) coloniality, and so forth. From this point of departure, the thesis identifies and examines different practices and sites of resistance to such plural and intersecting logics. It focuses on the acts of iconic female protectors operating within and beyond official institutions of protection. Mobilising Foucault’s work on parrhesia, understood as a practice that involves speaking fearless truth to power, the thesis thus analyses the ways in which different female protectors become parrhesiastes, in their acts of ‘snapping’ in reaction to logics of protection, by speaking risky truths to their constitutive power. The thesis examines the cases of Malalai Joya, Chelsea Manning, the Gulabi Gang, and Idle No More as parrhesiastic ‘snaps’ that problematise, disrupt, and/or reinforce logics of protection of/in International Security. Finally, the thesis concludes by reflecting on what such analysis means for our understanding of parrhesia as a political and ethical practice today in the context of international security, delineating its implications for feminist security studies and IR more generally.