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  • Editorial Introduction
  • Rebecca Ropers-Huilman

This issue of the National Women's Studies Association Journal has been developed during a time of great change and instability. Many nations are struggling economically and, within that struggle, are attempting to determine the best ways to meet their citizens' needs. It is becoming increasingly apparent not only that times and contexts influence identities and actions, but also that the past influences the future and that our contexts are often inextricably interconnected. Amidst this time of change, it is important to remember the value of both the National Women's Studies Association and the National Women's Studies Association Journal as resources for developing our field and our scholarly careers.

As a journal whose focus is to foster research and dialogue among those dedicated to feminist education and change, we share with the NWSA the mission of leading the field of women's studies in educational and social transformation. In her NWSA Journal article in 2002, Bonnie Zimmerman wrote of the need for a national organization focused specifically on women's studies. In her view, we need NWSA 1) to foster interdisciplinary scholarship; 2) to promote feminist theory, pedagogy, practice; 3) to create a sense of professional identity; 4) to foster a space in which to mentor women's studies graduate students; and 5) to nurture feminist community. It strikes me that, several years later, these five reasons for the continued existence and strengthening of the NWSA parallel those of the NWSA Journal. Specifically, the NWSA Journal provides a space for senior and junior scholars to bring interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary questions and answers together. In this way, the Journal addresses paths, paradigms, and patterns of thought that guide our field. It provides a space for scholars to connect with and challenge each other's thinking, in the spirit of creating important knowledge and practice related to diverse women's lives. Collaborative partnerships between junior and senior authors, as well as the Journal's commitment to provide productive feedback to those who submit, are part of the mentoring that our field provides for both emerging women's studies scholars as well as scholars with deep interests in gender who are beginning to establish themselves in other fields. Implicit in our goal of educational and social transformation is the development of a feminist community that honors each other's work, values our collectively built field, and respects the multiple ways in which we each participate in educational and social transformation efforts.

The articles in this issue continue to further these purposes. Additionally, they exemplify the idea that developments related to gendered understandings and actions are likewise sensitive to the nuances of time and place. We chose to foreground in this issue an important article about the emergence and contributions of girls' studies. Mary Celeste Kearney's [End Page vii] "Coalescing: The Development of Girls' Studies" rightfully demonstrates that, until recently, barriers have prevented the coalescence of scholars and scholarship into what could be considered a field of "girls' studies." This lack of interaction in and recognition of the field—and the scholars within it—made extant understandings harder to access and new, collaborative understandings harder to develop. While Kearney's article focuses first on the marginalization of scholarship on girls, it turns to explore how recent developments have been instrumental in bringing girls' studies together in a coherent field. Throughout her analysis, Kearney urges women's studies and youth studies scholars to listen to and collaborate with girls to promote both academic and broader cultural understandings nationally and internationally. Her call for inclusion and attention provides an important touchstone and raises many questions to be engaged in the larger field of women's studies. Many of us both within and outside the National Women's Studies Association find this to be a crucial yet understudied topic. I urge scholars studying girls' lives to submit their work to the NWSA Journal.

The other articles in the main section also illustrate how gender is constructed and contested in various contexts. In Stacey Mayhall's "Relocating the Security 'Battlefield': Gender and the 'High' Politics of Global Finance in the Pre– and Early Post–9/11 Period," she explores how...

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