Full Description
Investigates the theory and practice of transnational feminist approaches to scholarship and activism.
Provocative, timely, and global, this volume offers a critical and grounded engagement with transnational feminism through the lens of praxis-the juncture of theory and practice. In so doing, it grapples with questions of power and representation while remaining deeply committed to radical critiques and agendas of transnational and postcolonial feminisms. Long-time activists and well-known scholars speak to a wide range of issues and practices, including women's studies curricula; NGOs; transnational and LGBTQ studies; feminist methodologies; and film. These essays similarly conceptualize ways to more effectively theorize feminist collaborative practices while subverting such rigid, established dichotomies as theory/practice, academic/activist, individual/collaborative, and the global North/South. A number of transnational projects are highlighted: the Guyanese Red Thread collective; the Ananya Dance Theater; the Philippine Women Center of British Columbia; the Filipino-Canadian Youth Alliance; the VIVA! Project; and the Indian organization Sangtin. Comprehensive in scope and rigorous in critical scrutiny, these powerful essays set the twenty-first-century agenda for political engagement through feminist scholarship.
"The mix of styles makes for a lively read that is accessible for its extraordinary candor, its combination of theory with firmly grounded empirical examples, and an unflinching confrontation of pain and conflict. It made me think about entirely new things and about familiar things in new ways and to make connections among them." - Louise Fortmann, University of California Berkeley
Amanda Lock Swarr is Assistant Professor of Women Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle. Richa Nagar is Professor of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She is the author (with Sangtin writers) of Playing with Fire: Feminist Thought and Activism through Seven Lives in India.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Theorizing Transnational Feminist Praxis
RICHA NAGAR AND AMANDA LOCK SWARR
Part I. Decolonizing Transnational Feminisms
1. Cartographies of Knowledge and Power: Transnational Feminism as Radical Praxis
M. JACQUI ALEXANDER AND CHANDRA TALPADE MOHANTY
2. Disavowed Legacies and Honorable Thievery: The Work of the "Transnational" in Feminist and LGBTQ Studies
JIGNA DESAI, DANIELLE BOUCHARD, AND DIANE DETOURNAY
Part II. Dialogical Journeys
3. Seeing Beyond the State: Toward Transnational Feminist Organizing
GERALDINE PRATT IN COLLABORATION WITH THE PHILIPPINE WOMEN CENTRE OF BC AND UGNAYAN NG KABATAANG PILIPINO SA CANADA/ THE FILIPINO-CANADIAN YOUTH ALLIANCE
4. Conflicts and Collaborations: Building Trust in Transnational South Africa
SAM BULLINGTON AND AMANDA LOCK SWARR
5. Feminist Academic and Activist Praxis in Service of the Transnational
LINDA PEAKE AND KAREN DE SOUZA
6. Still Playing with Fire: Intersectionality, Activism, and NGOized Feminism
SANGTIN WRITERS (Reena, Richa Nagar, Richa Singh, and Surbala)
Part III. Representations and Reclamations
7. So Much to Remind Us We Are Dancing on Other People's Blood: Moving toward Artistic Excellence, Moving from Silence to Speech, Moving in Water, with Ananya Dance Theatre
OMISE'EKE NATASHA TINSLEY, ANANYA CHATTERJEA, HUI NIU WILCOX, AND SHANNON GIBNEY
8. Remapping the Americas: A Transnational Engagement with Creative Tensions of Community Arts
DEBORAH BARNDT
9. Envisioning Justice: The Politics and Possibilities of Transnational Feminist Film
RACHEL SILVEY
Continuing Conversations
CRITICAL TRANSNATIONAL FEMINIST PRAXIS CONTRIBUTORS
(Danielle Bouchard, Piya Chatterjee, Jigna Desai, Karen de Souza, Diane Detournay, Richa Nagar, Linda Peake, Rachel Silvey, Amanda Lock Swarr, and Hui Niu Wilcox)
About the Editors and Contributors
Index
