Silences in Canadian Foreign Policy Textbooks and Course Outlines
| Published date | 01 December 2022 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00207020231172981 |
| Author | Heather A. Smith |
| Date | 01 December 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Scholarly Essays |
Silences in Canadian Foreign
Policy Textbooks and Course
Outlines
Heather A. Smith
Department of Global and International Studies, University of
Northern British Columbia, Prince George, British Columbia, Canada
Abstract
In this article, I examine one book, seven edited volumes, and twenty-four Canadian
Foreign Policy course outlines to assess the inclusion of women scholars, feminist
research, Indigenous scholars, and Indigenous-themed research. As we will see, the
degree to which “silences have been broken”is strikingly uneven. Indigenous scholars
are rare in the field and the inclusion of work by Indigenous scholars is also rare. The
extent of inclusion of women scholars in edited volumes is varied, as is the representation
of women scholars in readings found in course outlines. Some texts and course outlines
show that the silences have been broken. However, through whose work they include,
some textbooks and course outlines suggest that the work of women scholars remains
marginal to the field, that Indigenous content is of little relevance, and in some cases,
the work of Indigenous and female scholars is neither heard nor seen.
Keywords
Silences, teaching, scholarship, gender, feminist, indigenous
Received September 14, 2022; accepted February 22, 2023
In one of my classes, I ask students to review Canadian Foreign Policy course outlines.
I have them look for what voices are not there. I ask them to seek out the silences. I’ll
never forget one student who exclaimed: “Isn’t it 2021? This course outline feels like it
Corresponding author:
Heather A. Smith, Department of Global and International Studies, University of Northern British
Columbia, 3333 University Way, Prince George, British Columbia, Canada V2N 4Z9.
Email: heather.smith@unbc.ca
Scholarly Essay
International Journal
2022, Vol. 77(4) 638–655
© The Author(s) 2023
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/00207020231172981
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was written in 1950!”What they meant is that the course outline did not represent the
diversity of the world as they experienced it. Almost thirty years after Deborah
Stienstra wrote her article, “Can the silence be broken? Gender and Canadian
Foreign Policy,”
1
and despite the growth of feminist publishing on the topic and the
emergence of more women scholars in the fields of Canadian foreign, defense, and
development policy,
2
there remain sites of profound silences in some of the textbooks
and course outlines that purport to survey Canadian Foreign Policy. Despite the emer-
gence of the Women in International Security (WIIS) organization as an important site
for mentoring junior scholars and fostering work by women and feminists, we still find
course outlines that include no women scholars.
3
Whileperhapsitistruethatsome“feminist scholars in CFP [Canadian Foreign Policy]
have achieved prominence in the field, despite their underrepresentation”
4
—an observa-
tion which Stéfanie von Hlatky states she received from anonymous reviewers—to
argue that some have achieved prominence despite underrepresentation obfuscates all
the systemic barriers, the not-so-subtle reminders of the marginality of feminists, and
the offensive behavior that has to be somehow navigated within the field (as von
Hlatky herself has experienced
5
). Von Hlatky is not alone in her experience. Claire
Turenne Sjolander, Stienstra, and I wrote in the preface of our 2003 volume about how
our work, funded in part by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
(DFAIT), was greeted by hostility by policymakers.
6
And I’ve written about being told
to “keep feminist research …as a sideline because it won’t get me anywhere.”
7
And so,
the prominence of unnamed feminist scholars doesn’t undo the ongoing underrepresenta-
tion and doesn’t undo the fact that female and feminist scholars, along with Indigenous
scholars and scholars of color, remain vastly underrepresented in the field.
1. Deborah Stienstra, “Can the silence be broken? Gender and Canadian Foreign Policy,”International
Journal 50, no. 1 (1994–1995): 103–127.
2. See for example, Edna Keeble and Heather A. Smith, (Re)Defining Traditions: Gender and Canadian
Foreign Policy (Halifax: Fernwood, 1999); Claire Turenne Sjolander, Heather A. Smith, and Deborah
Stienstra, eds., Feminist Perspectives on Canadian Foreign Policy (Toronto: Oxford University Press,
2003); Heather A. Smith and Claire Turenne Sjolander special edited volume on “Gender and Canadian
foreign policy,”Canadian Foreign Policy 12, no. 1 (2005); Stéfanie von Hlatky, “Les femmes et la
sécurité internationale: Perspectives canadiennes,”Études Internationales 48, no. 1 (Winter 2017): 7–19;
Rebecca Tiessen and Stephen Barayni, eds., Obligations and Omissions: Canada’s Ambiguous Actions
on Gender Equality (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2017); Jill Campbell-Miller, Greg
Donaghy, and Stacey Barker, eds., Breaking Barriers, Shaping Worlds: Canadian Woman and the Search
for Global Order (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2021).
3. Stéfanie von Hlatky, “Women and gender dynamics in Canadian foreign policy,”in Brian Bow and
Andrea Lane, eds., Canadian Foreign Policy: Reflections on a Field in Transition (Vancouver: University
of British Columbia Press, 2020), 262–263.
4. Ibid., 260.
5. Ibid., 265.
6. See Turenne Sjolander, Smith, and Stienstra, Feminist Perspectives on Canadian Foreign Policy, xii.
7. Heather A. Smith, “Disciplining nature of the discipline,”in Marshall Beier and Lana Wylie, eds.,
Canadian Foreign Policy in Critical Perspective (Toronto: Oxford, 2009), 11.
Smith 639
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