Gender and Exceptionality in North-South Interventions: Reflecting on Relations

Abstract

In this article I share my reflections on a normative research dilemma that has led to my journeying towards greater awareness of the ways in which white, feminist subjects participate in the perpetuation of racial domination on a global scale. To this end, I offer a reflection within a reflection, beginning with a choice that arose regarding undertaking part of my doctoral research in Africa. Drawing on my earlier experiences in a Women’s Programme in Zambia over a period of several years, I examine the origins of assumptions underlying both my more recent research dilemma and my previous engagement with gender issues in Africa. These are: a sense of entitlement on my part, and presumed availability on the part of African people in respect to my interventions. I then consider whether a more nuanced, situated feminism as articulated in Gender and Development theory would have changed these assumptions. In conclusion, I propose that, while feminism does not offer a ‘passport’ through the imperial relations of the North—South binary, a focus on interlocking systems of oppression may produce a more transformative effect than seems possible through Gender and Development approaches.