Research Paper
Haunted Milk, Hollow Markets, Maternal Spectrality, Patriarchal Trade, and Feminist IR Readings of AGOA through Toni Morrison’s Beloved
This thesis examines Toni Morrison’s Beloved as a critical feminist International Relations (IR) text that exposes the structural continuities between slavery-era reproductive violence and contemporary global political economy. Anchored in Morrison’s concept of rememory, the study argues that the novel’s spectral maternal motifs—particularly stolen milk, infanticidal protection, and communal rebirth—function as analytic tools for understanding how patriarchal systems of extraction persist beyond formal emancipation. By situating Beloved within feminist IR, this research reframes literary trauma not as historical memory alone, but as an ongoing political condition embedded in international economic structures. Through a close reading of Beloved, the thesis theorises the theft of Sethe’s breast milk as an act of commodification of reproductive labour, wherein Black motherhood is rendered extractable, punishable, and economically exploitable. This logic, the study contends, reappears in contemporary trade regimes—most notably the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA)—where African women’s labour sustains global apparel supply chains while remaining systematically undervalued. Feminist IR concepts of everyday violence and patriarchal privilege reveal how global trade policies, though framed as development instruments, reproduce gendered harm through low wages, labour precarity, environmental toxicity, and sexual coercion in export-oriented industries. Integrating political economy with feminist economics, the thesis draws on motherhood penalty theory, particularly the work of Claudia Goldin, to demonstrate how global markets disproportionately penalise women for reproductive and caregiving labour. In AGOA-export economies, women’s concentration in apparel work is not incidental but structural: motherhood reduces bargaining power, increases vulnerability, and makes women ideal subjects for exploitation under neoliberal trade. This analysis positions maternal labour as central—rather than peripheral—to international economic policy, challenging the presumed gender neutrality of trade agreements. Finally, the thesis addresses a critical gap across literary studies, feminist IR, and trade scholarship by employing Beloved as a methodological framework rather than a symbolic reference. While extensive research exists on trauma and motherhood in Morrison’s work and on AGOA’s economic outcomes, no study to date integrates maternal literary motifs into feminist trade analysis. By doing so, this research proposes narrative-driven, gender-just trade reforms, arguing that women’s embodied experiences must be recognised as legitimate sources of international political knowledge. Until trade regimes confront their reliance on gendered extraction, the thesis concludes, the spectral presence of Beloved will continue to haunt global markets.
Published by: Phalak Singh Khatkar
Author: Phalak Singh Khatkar
Paper ID: V11I6-1322
Paper Status: published
Published: January 8, 2026
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