Posthumanist feminist theory has been instrumental in demonstrating the salience of gender and sexism in structuring human–animal relationships and in revealing the connections between the oppression of women and of nonhuman animals. Despite the richness of feminist posthumanist theorizations it has been suggested that their influence in contemporary animal ethics has been muted. This marginalization of feminist work—here, in its posthumanist version—is a systemic issue within theory and needs to be remedied. At the same time, the limits of posthumanist feminist (...) theory must also be addressed. Although posthumanist feminist theory has generated a sophisticated body of work analyzing how gendered and sexist discourses and practices subordinate women and animals alike, its imprint in producing intersectional analyses of animal issues is considerably weaker. This leaves theorists vulnerable to charges of essentialism, ethnocentrism, and elitism despite best intentions to avoid such effects and despite commitments to uproot all forms of oppression. Gender-focused accounts also preclude understanding of the importance of race and culture in structuring species-based oppression. To counter these undesirable pragmatic and conceptual developments, posthumanist feminist theory needs to engender feminist accounts that centralize the structural axes of race and culture. (shrink)

This essay argues that a new, politicized mestiza is emerging within the cultural borderlands of the Mexico-U.S. divide. She works in the upper ranks of the multinational maquiladoras and raises many challenges for a feminist theorization of a new border politics. Through a presentation of research in one maquiladora, the essay demonstrates how understanding the dynamic between metaphorical and material space is vital for imagining a feminist politics in the cultural borderlands.

John Christman has argued that constitutively relational accounts of autonomy, as defended by some feminist theorists, are problematically perfectionist about the human good. I argue that autonomy is constitutively relational, but not in a way that implies perfectionism: autonomy depends on a dialogical disposition to hold oneself answerable to external, critical perspectives on one's action-guiding commitments. This type of relationality carries no substantive value commitments, yet it does answer to core feminist concerns about autonomy.

Drawing parallels between gender essentialism and cultural essentialism, I point to some common features of essentialist pictures of culture. I argue that cultural essentialism is detrimental to feminist agendas and suggest strategies for its avoidance. Contending that some forms of cultural relativism buy into essentialist notions of culture, I argue that postcolonial feminists need to be cautious about essentialist contrasts between "Western" and "Third World" cultures.

The recent global movement for women's human rights has achieved considerable re-thinking of human rights as previously understood. Since many of women's rights violations occur in the private sphere of family life, and are justified by appeals to cultural or religious norms, both families and cultures (including their religious aspects) have come under critical scrutiny.

Joan Scott's poststructuralist critique of experience demonstrates the dangers of empiricist narratives of experience but leaves feminists without a meaningful way to engage nonempiricist, experience-oriented texts, texts that constitute many women's primary means of taking control over their own representation. Using Chandra Mohanty's analysis of the role of writing in Third World feminisms, I articulate a concept of experience that incorporates poststructuralist insights while enabling a more responsible reading of Third World women's narratives.

Recent decades of women's rights advocacy have produced numerous regional and international agreements for protecting women's security, including a UN convention that affirms the state's responsibility to protect key gender-specific rights, with no exceptions on the basis of culture or religion. At the same time, however, the focus on universal women's rights has enabled influential feminists in the United States to view women's rights in opposition to culture, and most often in opposition to other people's cultures. Not surprisingly, then, feminists (...) across the global South have criticized the universal-women's-rights agenda. This article reviews representative critical responses to universal-women's-rights advocacy. The author argues that, taken collectively, these critical responses do not reject the possibility of cross-cultural feminist advocacy but they do suggest the need for feminists in the United States and Europe to focus less on transferring rights across the obstacles of culture and more on how they can revise and expand their own understanding of women's rights in response to the struggles of other women, many of whom view women's rights as organic to their own cultures and as connected to broader social struggles. (shrink)

Joan Scott's poststructuralist critique of experience demonstrates the dangers of empiricist narratives of experience but leaves feminists without a meaningful way to engage nonempiricist, experience-oriented texts, texts that constitute many women's primary means of taking control over their own representation. Using Chandra Mohanty's analysis of the role of writing in Third World feminisms, I articulate a concept of experience that incorporates poststructuralist insights while enabling a more responsible reading of Third World women's narratives.

: Reilly offers an account of cosmopolitan feminism as emancipatory political practice in an age of globalization. This entails a critical engagement with international human rights law; a global feminist consciousness that contests patriarchal, capitalist, and racist power dynamics in a context of neoliberal globalization; cross-boundaries dialogue that recognizes the intersectionality of forms of oppression; collaborative transnational strategizing on concrete issues; and the utilization of global forums as sites of cosmopolitan solidarity and citizen action.

Reilly offers an account of cosmopolitan feminism as emancipatory political practice in an age of globalization. This entails a critical engagement with international human rights law; a global feminist consciousness that contests patriarchal, capitalist, and racist power dynamics in a context of neoliberal globalization; cross-boundaries dialogue that recognizes the intersectionality of forms of oppression; collaborative transnational strategizing on concrete issues; and the utilization of global forums as sites of cosmopolitan solidarity and citizen action.

This essay participates in a feminist postcohnial critical historiographyfepistemol’ ogy by providing a critique of The Post-Colonial Critic: Interviews, Strategies, Dialogues. The essay considers Spivak's success in interrogating her own position as a leading postcohnial critic as she engages in dialogues with various people. Spivak's commitment to cross-cultural exchanges is undeniable. However, at times the resurgence of her authoritative subject position deflects productive tensions generated by careful scrutiny of the category postcohnial.

This essay participates in a feminist postcolonial critical historiography/epistemology by providing a critique of The Post - Colonial Critic: Interviews, Strategies, Dialogues. The essay considers Spivak's success in interrogating her own position as a leading postcolonial critic as she engages in dialogues with various people. Spivak's commitment to cross-cultural exchanges is undeniable. However, at times the resurgence of her authoritative subject position deflects productive tensions generated by careful scrutiny of the category postcolonial.

The aim of this essay is to carry out an analysis of the multi-voiced, multi-cultural self discussed by Latina feminists in light of a Heideggerian phenomenological account of persons or “Existential Analytic.” In so doing, it points out similarities as well as differences between the Heideggerian description of the self and Latina feminists' phenomenological accounts of self, and critically assesses María Lugones's important notion of “world-traveling.” In the end, the essay defends the view of a “multiplicitous” self which takes insights (...) from Lugones's view of the self that “travels ‘worlds’” and from other Latina feminists' accounts of self as well as from Martin Heidegger's account of Dasein. (shrink)

: Events surrounding the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States raise compelling moral questions about the effects of war and globalization on children in many parts of the world. This paper adopts Sartre's notion of freedom, particularly its connection with materiality and intersubjectivity, to assess the moral responsibility that we have as a global community toward our most vulnerable members. We conclude by examining important first steps that should be taken to address the plight of children.

This essay argues that a new, politicized mestiza is emerging within the cultural borderlands of the Mexico-U.S. divide. She works in the upper ranks of the multinational maquiladoras and raises many challenges for a feminist theorization of a new border politics. Through a presentation of research in one maquiladora, the essay demonstrates how understanding the dynamic between metaphorical and material space is vital for imagining a feminist politics in the cultural borderlands.

This paper reconsiders the use of the term "victim" in feminist theory to attempt to find common ground for the intersection and interconnection of Western and indigenous feminisms. The role of the victim in the discourse of victimology, a branch of criminology, is assessed and applied to the work of Rajeswari Sunder Rajan and Lata Mani who both examine the construction of women's subjectivity in the practice of "sati" in India.

Feminist affiliation has long been suspect among Native American women whose memories survive the dishonor of colonialism. The idea of common struggles is simultaneously repugnant and alluring. Sadly, this has led to much confusion and rejection between Aboriginal women. I suggest “a return to reciprocity” to understand and come to terms with feminist rejection or affiliation. If we cannot come together, the fracturing that began with European ideology will continue to fragment and destroy the fabric of Native cultures.

Feminist affiliation has long been suspect among Native American women whose memories survive the dishonor of colonialism. The idea of common struggles is simultaneously repugnant and alluring. Sadly, this has led to much confusion and rejection between Aboriginal women. I suggest “a return to reciprocity” to understand and come to terms with feminist rejection or affiliation. If we cannot come together, the fracturing that began with European ideology will continue to fragment and destroy the fabric of Native cultures.

The aim of this essay is to carry out an analysis of the multi-voiced, multi-cultural self discussed by Latina feminists in light of a Heideggerian phenomenological account of persons or "Existential Analytic." In so doing, it (a) points out similarities as well as differences between the Heideggerian description of the self and Latina feminists' phenomenological accounts of self, and (b) critically assesses María Lugones's important notion of "world-traveling." In the end, the essay defends the view of a "multiplicitous" self which (...) takes insights from Lugones's view of the self that "travels 'worlds'" and from other Latina feminists' accounts of self as well as from Martin Heidegger's account of Dasein. (shrink)

The philosopher Enrique Dussel offers a critical analysis of European construction of indigenous peoples which he calls "transmodern." His theory is especially relevant to feminist and other concerns about the potential disabling effects of postmodern approaches for political action and the development of theory. Dussel divides modernity into two concurrent paradigms. Reflection on them suggests that modernism and postmodernism should not be too strongly distinguished. In conclusion, his approach is compared with that of Mohanty.

This paper examines the rhetorical dimension of arguments about global justice. It draws on postcolonial theory, an approach that has explored the relationship between knowledge and power. The global justice literature has elaborated critiques of global inequality and advanced arguments about how to overcome the legacies of domination. These concerns are also shared by critics of colonialism, yet there are also epistemological differences that separate the two scholarly communities. Despite these differences, I argue that bringing the two literatures into conversation (...) generates important benefits. Postcolonial theory draws attention to the way that abstract concepts can function as metaphors that have the unintended consequence of reinforcing power relations. Normative theory will be more effective at promoting global justice if it pays more attention to the politics of representation. (shrink)

Critics of transnational commercial surrogacy frequently call our attention to the race, class, and cultural background of surrogates in the global South. Consider the following sampling from the critics: "the women having babies for rich Westerners have been pimped by their husbands and are powerless to resist" (Bindel 2011); our "rules of decency seem to differ when the women in question are living in abject poverty half a world away" (Warner 2008); and we should worry that "women of color are (...) easier to commodify" (Smerdon 2008, 51-52). Critics suggest—rightly, in my view—that the race, class, and culture of Southern surrogates matter to the moral acceptability of transnational surrogacy. But how, precisely, do .. (shrink)

I argue that the epistemological virtues of concrete thinking, self-transparency, and narrative understanding developed by care ethicists can help international development practitioners combat their own temptations to engage in “unconscious unjustified paternalism” (UUP). I develop the concept of UUP—a type of paternalism in which one party unjustifiably substitutes her judgment for another's because of difficulty distinguishing her desires for the other from the other's good. I show that the temptation to UUP is endemic to development and that care ethics contains (...) virtues for combating it. Key to my claim is a view of caregiving as a practice of negotiating conflict. (shrink)

: Hipparchia's use of exile as an ethical and rhetorical space from which to critique convention is the point of departure for an examination of the ethics of using exile as a rhetorically effective position for feminist theorizing. To address the ethical problems involved in using exile as a rhetorical space, I argue for a reading of exile as both a rhetorical and embodied space that can maintain an ethical anchor for feminist rhetorical and political practice.

Hipparchia's use of exile as an ethical and rhetorical space from which to critique convention is the point of departure for an examination of the ethics of using exile as a rhetorically effective position for feminist theorizing. To address the ethical problems involved in using exile as a rhetorical space, I argue for a reading of exile as both a rhetorical and embodied space that can maintain an ethical anchor for feminist rhetorical and political practice.

This article aims to refute the “incompatibility thesis” that nationalism is incompatible with transnational feminist solidarity, as it fosters exclusionary practices, xenophobia, and racism among feminists with conflicting nationalist aspirations. I examine the plausibility of the incompatibility thesis by focusing on the controversy regarding just reparation for Second World War “comfort women,” which is still unresolved. The Korean Council at the center of this controversy, which advocates for the rights of Korean former comfort women, has been criticized for its strident (...) nationalism and held responsible for the stalemate. Consequently, the case of comfort women has been thought to exemplify the incompatibility thesis. I argue against this common feminist perception in three ways: first, those who subscribe to the incompatibility thesis have misinterpreted facts surrounding the issue; second, the Korean Council's nationalism is a version of “polycentric nationalism,” which avoids the problems of essentialist nationalism at the center of feminist concerns; and, third, transnational feminist solidarity is predicated on the idea of oppressed/marginalized women's epistemic privilege and enjoins that feminists respect oppressed/marginalized women's epistemic privilege. To the extent that oppressed/marginalized women's voices are expressed in nationalist terms, I argue that feminists committed to transnational feminist solidarity must accommodate their nationalism. (shrink)

This paper argues that competing ethical positions in the Terri Schiavo debate—calls to “err on the side of life” or to “err on the side of liberty”—aim to regulate life and not to defend its sanctity or freedom. Advancing analyses of the “biopolitics” of the case, I show how Terri Schiavo’s status as a speaking-being is an important question for both positions. Informed by feminist concerns about the marginalization and ventriloquization of voices, I argue that bioethicists should “lend an ear” (...) to the voices of Terri Schiavo. (shrink)

This paper questions the connection between vaginas and feminist embodiment in The Vagina Monologues and considers how the text both challenges and reinscribes systems of patriarchy, compulsory heterosexuality, and ableism. I use the Intersex Society of North America's critique as a point of departure and argue that the text offers theorists and activists in feminist, queer, and disability communities an opportunity to understand how power operates in both dominant discourses that degrade vaginas and strategies of feminist resistance that seek to (...) reclaim and celebrate them. (shrink)

Criticisms have been made against international laws and conventions on asylum and refugees, arguing that these have been based on a male model of definition, which have ignored women’s persecutions. This article will argue that recent developments in European asylum policy have the potential to deepen this discrimination and to further reduce the rights of female asylum seekers. Although there have been some positive developments in jurisprudence that have recognised that gender-specific persecution may be the basis for granting asylum, these (...) advances remain relatively sporadic and are undermined by the operation of random and discretionary exercises of power by bureaucrats and decision makers in many cases. Further, although new developments in asylum policy are in theory “gender neutral,” differences in the material circumstances of men and women who arrive to seek asylum may mean in effect that the implications of these policies are deeply gendered. (shrink)

: This paper on Ofelia Schutte's work discusses five main themes: gender oppression in the context of Latin American theories of social liberation; normative heterosexuality in Beauvoir and Irigaray; Schutte's analysis of women and capitalist globalization processes; her work on cultural identities; and the possibility of feminist transnational identities. I conclude with a comment on her postcolonial epistemological method in addressing cultural incommensurability and the possibility of a common agenda for transnational feminism.

This paper on Ofelia Schutte's work discusses five main themes: gender oppression in the context of Latin American theories of social liberation; normative heterosexuality in Beauvoir and Irigaray; Schutte's analysis of women and capitalist globalization processes; her work on cultural identities; and the possibility of feminist transnational identities. I conclude with a comment on her postcolonial epistemological method in addressing cultural incommensurability and the possibility of a common agenda for transnational feminism.

This essay reviews a body of literature on feminism, development, and knowledge construction. This literature rejects essentialist constructions of women, challenges the universality of the Western scientific method, and creates a discursive space for reconstructing the dualisms embedded in the modern worldview. It suggests that an understanding of knowledge systems other than the modern one can aid us in constructing epistemologies that result in less dominating ways of producing knowledge.

In contemporary Western societies, birthing is framed as transformative for mothers; however, it is also a site for the regulation of women and the exercise of power relations by health professionals. Nursing scholarship often frames migrant mothers as a problem, yet nurses are imbricated within systems of scrutiny and regulation that are unevenly imposed on ‘other’ mothers. Discourses deployed by New Zealand Plunket nurses (who provide a universal ‘well child’ health service) to frame their understandings of migrant mothers were analysed (...) using discourse analysis and concepts of power drawn from the work of French philosopher Michel Foucault, read through a postcolonial feminist perspective. This research shows how Plunket nurses draw on liberal feminist discourses, which have emancipatory aims but reflect assimilatory practices, paradoxically disempowering women who do not subscribe to ideals of individual autonomy. Consequently, the migrant mother, her family and new baby are brought into a neoliberal project of maternal improvement through surveillance. This project – enacted differentially but consistently among nurses – attempts to alter maternal and familial relationships by ‘improving’ mothering. Feminist critiques of patriarchy in maternity must be supplemented by a critique of the implicitly western subject of maternity to make empowerment a possibility for all mothers. (shrink)

This paper uses a semiotic, performative theory of language and post-colonial theory to argue that nursing's representations of ‘multiculturalism’ need to be grounded in a theory of whiteness, an historicized understanding of how ethnic/cultural differences come to be represented in the ways they are and informed by Foucault's notions of power/knowledge. Using nursing education and ‘cultural compentency’ as examples, the paper draws on a range of literatures to suggest more critical and politically productive ways of approaching difference from within nursing's (...) largely white interpretive framework. (shrink)

In neocolonial contexts of globalization, the epistemological terrain of radical diversity poses significant ethical challenges to transnational feminisms. In view of historical associations between knowledge and discourses of love which were conditioned by imperialist brands of humanism and benevolence under colonialism, this paper argues for a deconstructionist approach to conceptualizing love in relation to knowledge and for an ethics that severs the association with benevolence, instead making alterity the basis for its account.

: In neocolonial contexts of globalization, the epistemological terrain of radical diversity poses significant ethical challenges to transnational feminisms. In view of historical associations between knowledge and discourses of love which were conditioned by imperialist brands of humanism and benevolence under colonialism, this paper argues for a deconstructionist approach to conceptualizing love in relation to knowledge and for an ethics that severs the association with benevolence, instead making alterity the basis for its account.

: Disability theory privileges masculinist notions of presence, visibility, material "reality," and identity as "given." One effect of this has been the erasure of "sensibility," which, it is argued, inscribes, materializes, and performs the critique of binary thought. Therefore, sensibility must be re-articulated in order to escape the "necessary error" of identity implicit in accounts of cultural diversity, and to dialogue across difference in ways that dislocate disability from its position of dis-value in feminist thought.

Disability theory privileges masculinist notions of presence, visibility, material “reality,” and identity as “given.” One effect of this has been the erasure of “sensibility,” which, it is argued, inscribes, materializes, and performs the critique of binary thought. Therefore, sensibility must be re-articulated in order to escape the “necessary error” of identity implicit in accounts of cultural diversity, and to dialogue across difference in ways that dislocate disability from its position of disvalue in feminist thought.

Recent sociological theories of globalization represent a second encounter between sociology and global issues. Their underlying concept of "global society" was constructed from an idea of abstract linkage, given content by existing theories about metropolitan society emphasizing modernity, postmodernity, or system dynamics. Antinomies within the globalization theory, such as the global/local opposition and chaotic argument about power, arise from the metropole-centered logic itself, not from conflicts of evidence. The rhetoric and performativity of globalization theory construct a relation with metropolitan audiences, (...) and sociological theories constitute themselves in multiple ways as Northern theory. If we want a genuinely global analysis of globalization we must reconstruct sociological theory as a markedly more inclusive dialogue. (shrink)

This paper reflects on ethical issues raised in research with homeless people in rural areas. It argues that the significant embracing of dialogic and reflexive approaches to social research is likely to render standard approaches to ethical research practice increasingly complex and open to negotiation. Diary commentaries from different individuals in the research team are used to present self-reflexive accounts of the ethical complexities and dilemmas encountered in offering explanations of the validity of the research, in carrying out ethnographic encounters (...) with homeless people and in producing and evaluating the outputs of research. Reflexivity does not dissolve ethical tensions, but opens up possibilities for new ethical and moral maps with which to explore ethical terrains more appropriately and more honestly. (shrink)

This paper reflects on ethical issues raised in research with homeless people in rural areas. It argues that the significant embracing of dialogic and reflexive approaches to social research is likely to render standard approaches to ethical research practice increasingly complex and open to negotiation. Diary commentaries from different individuals in the research team are used to present self-reflexive accounts of the ethical complexities and dilemmas encountered in offering explanations of the validity of the research, in carrying out ethnographic encounters (...) with homeless people and in producing and evaluating the outputs of research. Reflexivity does not dissolve ethical tensions, but opens up possibilities for new ethical and moral maps with which to explore ethical terrains more appropriately and more honestly. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the essentialism/antiessentialism debate among feminists is a variety of the idealist/realist split that Dewey addressed in The Quest for Certainty. I attempt to use Dewey's thought to subvert this opposition so that we can remove the feminist discussion from the structure of an idealist/realist either/or.