8. Toward a Feminist Analytic of the Post- Liberalization State

Abstract

This chapter presents an overview of the feminist analytic of the post-liberalization state as developed in this volume. It develops a feminist materialist approach that addresses the complexities and contradictions of the policies, ideologies, and practices associated with contemporary neoliberalism. This approach rests on an integrated analysis of discursive and nondiscursive practices and addresses the interconnections between inequalities such as gender, race, caste, sexuality, and class. From this materialist feminist perspective, the discursive regimes that shape policies of market liberalization often rest on a paradox. If a materialist feminist analysis necessitates that we pay attention to complex dynamics of race, sexuality, class, and national context, these discursive regimes are also invested in liberal narratives of women’s empowerment that invoke a homogeneous category of “woman.” This category thus becomes a key component of the developmental dimensions of market liberalization in ways that discipline feminism itself. Strategies of social movements and critical intellectual currents that emerge in response to inequality and exclusion can be inadvertently disciplined or misguided when trapped by a ubiquitous or ethereal idea of “neoliberalism.” The feminist analytic of the post-liberalization state seeks to open up intellectual avenues that can disrupt this disciplining of interdisciplinary knowledge practices.