Marginalized identity: new frontiers of research for IR?

This chapter explores the methodological implications of putting otherwise marginalized research subjects at the center of IR inquiry. Centering the marginalized subject – namely the survivors of gender-based violence during and after the Independence War of Bangladesh – requires asking ethical and substantive questions that impact not only the research design but, more fundamentally, the research question itself. I began my methodological journey by asking questions about a gendered silence – the rape of of women during this war – and ended up exploring the story of nation-building. The subjects of my study were written out of that history, but that history was drafted on and with their bodies and families. Placing their stories as the focal point of my…