Embracing Vulnerability: A Reflection on my Academic Journey as a Japanese Early Career Feminist Academic Abroad

Abstract

This chapter explores the personal account of Matusoka realising her feminist self over the course of her academic studies from undergraduate to PhD candidate. Matsuoka reflects on her academic and pedagogical experiences as an international student, which provoked many internal questions about her national identity, ethnic, and gendered self. She was born into a Japanese family living the United States and moved to Japan and then the United Kingdom during some of her most formative years. She charts her feelings of being an ‘outsider’, even when living in her native country of Japan. Using the concepts of vulnerability and precarity to explore and understand her identity as a feminist early career academic abroad, Matsuoka’s chapter reflects her personal and academic journey through the difficulties and opportunities she has faced in her quest to become a scholar in International Relations (IR). Moreover, Matsuoka explores the contested position of feminism in the discipline of IR and particularly how this inspired a self-interrogation regarding her own feminist awakening. This honest and highly personal account provides a fascinating display of one feminist international scholar’s journey through a myriad of academic and identity challenges.