Gendering national identity: a poststructural analysis of the Trump administration and foreign trade policy
Abstract
This paper takes its onset in an ongoing trade war between the United States (U.S.) and
China. As current president of the U.S., Donald Trump is considered by many to challenge
how U.S. foreign affairs are conducted today. For a better understanding of how global
politics is conducted, this paper explores a gendered U.S. national identity through
poststructuralism, through which foreign policy and identity are theorized as relying upon
each other. Poststructuralism challenges the dominant understanding of International
Relations, and in how political and analytical perspectives can be investigated. Moreover, the
conceptualization of gender in this paper stems from the works of e.g. Judith Butler and
Nira-Yuval-Davis. By using the method of discourse analysis, the goal of this paper is to
identify articulations of identity constructions and to illustrate how these have gendered
implications, and how this relates to foreign (trade) policy. This paper examines official
speeches and documents produced by the Trump administration through a discourse analysis
and the methodological framework as formulated by Lene Hansen, with an analytical focus
on identity constructions and the dichotomy of Self/Other. The findings suggest that the U.S.
national identity as constructed under the Trump administration draws upon gendered
underpinnings, which are performative reciprocally relational to foreign policy, as showcased
through the U.S. China trade war.
Degree
Student essay
Collections
View/ Open
Date
2019-09-16Author
Sjöberg, Fiona
Keywords
national identity
gender
U.S. foreign policy
U.S. foreign trade policy
poststructuralism
discourse analysis
Series/Report no.
Globala Studier
2019:4
Language
eng