Strategizing Femininity between the Global and the Taiwanese Local: Implications for International Relations Chih-Yu Shih * Department of Political Science, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC *Email: cyshih@ntu.edu.tw Accepted 2 July 2021 Abstract The article tackles a conceptual topic of postcolonial feminism— self-feminization. Specifically, the article explores the femininity of Taiwanese professionals’ bridging role between the head and branch offices of multinational firms in Taiwan, as well as between an allegedly universal ethos in science, market, and the globalization on the one hand and the humanist concerns for emotion, relation, and nuance on the other. The femininity of financial office as well as other local capaci- ties demonstrates how they can improvise relationships for mutually estranging actors. Then, the article extends the discussion to allude to international relations, divided by an allegedly universal (usually conver- sional) and indigenous (usually resistant) force in terms of value, institution, relation, or identity. I use the local branch office qua the indigenous, the head office qua the universal, and the professionals International Relations of the Asia-Pacific Vol. 23 No. 1 # The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press in association with the Japan Association of International Relations; All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com International Relations of the Asia-Pacific Volume 23, (2023) 1–31 doi: 10.1093/irap/lcab014 Advance Access published on 28 December 2021 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/irap/article/23/1/1/6485151 by guest on 30 December 2022