Transnational Feminism

Front 1

eurocentrism

Back 1

dominant lens of European society and culture, the assumed supierority of all things Western,

Front 2

Reading #1
Gender in a Transnational World
(Grewal and Kaplan)

Back 2

-global sisterhood as problematic because it reduces differences among women of different class/race/sexuality/etc.
-women's bodies are constructed by discourse
-question of postmodernity: questioning the ways that fundamentalism works to control and discipline women in different areas
-"need to conceive multiple overlapping discrete oppressions instead of one hegemonic oppression"
-the idea of a "common world for women" contradicts the continuing tensions created between/among women by inequality.
-tensions are opportunities for connection
-feminism and nationalism: feminism can masquerade as nationalism, when feminism operates as modernism, because modernism is associated with nationalism and patriarchy.

Front 3

Reading #2
Feminist Geneologies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures
(Alexander and Mohanty)

Back 3

-authors critique the binary of modernity vs. tradition as helping to produce Eurocentrism
-modernity comes to mean "civilized"
-tradition is a set of crystallized practices thats static
-civilizing mission, savior narrative
-Scattered Hegemonies: microcenters of power, hegemony at all scales of the globe.
-nation states police race, class, gender, and sexuality

Front 4

grid of intelligibility

Back 4

the categories with which we think.
-there is no non-neutral grid of intelligibility!
-the decolonization process may shift the grid of intelligibility
-internalized oppression, internalized colonialism are parts of the grid. hegemonic ideas are often accepted into one's mind unconsciously

Front 5

Scattered Hegemonies (from Transnational Feminist Practices and Questions of Postmodernity, Grewal and Kaplan)

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examples:
-global economic structures
-patriarchal nationalisms
-"authentic" forms of tradition
-local structures of domination
-legal-juridical oppression on multiple levels

Front 6

cultural relativism

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there's no such thing as a Nature that's independent of culture. the opposite of universalism.
-both universalism and relativism can be problematic

Front 7

The Third World

Back 7

a form of thinking about the Global South. Alexander calls it violent, colonizing, and victimizing.

Front 8

imperialism

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savior narratives, civilizing missions. White men saving Brown Women from Brown Men (Spivak). The gendered dimension of colonialism.

Front 9

Types of Colonialism

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-administrative colonies
-economic colonies (resource extractions)
-settler colonies (civilizing missions, cultural oppression. ex=US)

Front 10

contact zone

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place of meeting for the colonizer and the colonized

Front 11

Reading #3
Geneologies, Legacies, Movements
(Mohanty and Alexander)

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-challenging the hegemony of whiteness
-"inequality structures the needs, values, and desires for different groups of women"
-work of women of color has been erased/ignored
-agency: theorized differently. instead of thinking of oneself as an individual under capitalism, agency is anchored in thinking of oneself as [part of a feminist collectivity
-state uses the idea of democracy and taints it with capitalistic values, associates it with freedom/equality.
-the feminist democracy: sexual politics, different relationships, socialist principles, and theory/practice.
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Front 12

homonationalism

Back 12

the state mobilization of queer subjects

Front 13

strategic essentialism

Back 13

taking up essential categories at certain times to gain benefits for a group. Taking up categories for a political reason.

Front 14

Scientific Racism and the Invention of the Homosexual Body
(Siobhan Somerville)

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homosexuality as "unnatural"
-Visible differences: sexology and comparative anatomy, biological determinism. locating racial difference through the sexual characteristics of the female body. preserving white female purity through framing the African American female body as anormative.
-mixed body: eugenics and paranoia about race suicide.
-sexual perversion and racialized desire:

Front 15

One is Not Born a Woman
(Monique Wittig)

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what we often take as the origin of oppression is in fact the mark of the oppressor.
-the category "woman" is a class.
-Lesbianism is true freedom because the subject is Not woman.

Front 16

Transnational Feminist Practices Against War
(Bacchetta et al.)

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-analyze the gendered and racialized effects of nationalism
-analyze present wars in the context of past displacement and migrations
-domestic civil violence is related to war
-analysis of stereotypes and tropes
-therapeutic discourses leave historical and critical frameworks unexplored
-analysis of role of the media
-deeper understanding of nature of capitalism and globalization

Front 17

quare studies

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-queer studies is the study of white queers. often overlooks Race and Class.
-eve sedgwick says Queer is a catch-all term for getting away from the heterosexual/homosexual binary.
-M. Warner: queer takes many forms, brings theory back into a public form, relates it to Butler's notion of the self as inseparable from discursive systems. but there is race trouble with these moves.
-***contingent and fragile coalition in the struggle against common oppressive forms***

Front 18

strategic essentialism

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galvanizing around "identity" for queer theorists of color is purposeful, useful, and often necessary, as in E. Patrick Johnson's Piece. community, and finding who (in our minds) wears the "face of difference" (Lorde) can deepen community ties, and free one of the "armistice" between the individual and her oppression.

Front 19

performance versus materiality

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reducing gender and race to fictional and performative categories has material consequences.
performing self is also for the Self in a moment of Self-reflexivity

Front 20

disidentification

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always attempting to enact permanent structural change while at the same time valuing and participating in everyday struggle to Transform From Within

Front 21

characteristics of racist ideology

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-race is 'geneticist' (used to be a legal category!)
-now it is alteroreferential (used to be autoreferential, aka used to refer to oneself, now it refers to someone else)
-category is syncretic (amalgamation, combination) instead of diachronic (changed over time)