A (political) postcard from a peripheral pre-postmodern state (of mind) or how alliteration and parentheses can knock you down dead in women's studies

Abstract

Not strictly a ‘paper’ from the disciplined perspective of a ‘discipline,’ this is more a questioning conversation with myself (and others) about the relationship between the women's liberation movement and Women's Studies in the 1990s. The conversation is located in Ireland, but Ireland itself is a postcolonial and deeply divided state located on the edge of one continent, directly confronting (or exposed to) another. The insecurities and vulnerabilities which flow from this location inevitably ground the questions raised. And especially questions about trends and directions within western feminist thought which appear to be exacerbating distinctions between activism and theory-making or, more concretely, increasing the distance between women's movement activists, feminist theorists—and women. Specifically, the conversation queries whether the attraction of (some) feminist theorists to postmodernism is enabling or disabling for women's liberation and processes of social, economic, and political change—or whether it matters at all. The final question of the conversation concerns the ‘place’ of Women's Studies (in particular places) and its relation to feminist practices and theories.