Transnational Feminist Perspective Research Articles

Women Playwrights at the Crossroads: A Comparative Study of Ireland and Korea in the Mid-Twentieth Century

This paper examines plays by Irish and Korean women playwrights whose work is often neglected in their national canons and in the male-dominated theatre scene of the mid-twentieth century. The cases of Ireland and Korea overlap in compelling ways with discussions of modernity that are being reconstructed from the perspectives of colonial subjugation (under Britain and Japan) and wartime experience (in the Irish Civil War of 1922-23 and Korean War of 1950-53). There is a close relationship between these women writers’ marginalised place in their respective countries’ literary and theatrical scene and the process of Irish and Korean modernisation. The paper conducts a comparative analysis of works by Teresa Deevy, Kim Ja-rim, Maura Laverty and Jeon Ok-joo, highlighting the various thematic, political and formal strategies that these playwrights adopted at a time when their nations were ‘at the crossroads’. Against the grand narratives of ‘the nation’, women playwrights focused on depicting the aesthetics of daily life, emphasising aspects that had been neglected or marginalised in the discourse of modernity/coloniality. They dismantled clichés of dutiful wives and pacifist mothers, choosing instead to create complex and authentic depictions of femininity, endowing their female characters with a potent political voice in the public sphere. By reassessing their plays from a transnational feminist perspective, the paper seeks to expand feminist discourses in both Irish and Korean theatre history.

Decolonising gendered discourse and practices in HRD: towards transnational feminist solidarity and sustainability

ABSTRACT Gender issues at work are increasingly ‘transnational’—extending and operating across national boundaries. Human resource development (HRD) scholarship and practices that essentialise marginalised women without considering the transnational oppression structure only reinforce gendered systems globally. This paper provides a framework for transnational feminist HRD (TFHRD) praxis to address transnational gender issues at work. The paper describes transnational feminism, introduces gender-related issues at work from a transnational feminist perspective, and identifies transnational gender discourse in HRD. Integrating transnational feminist studies and the Bierema-Callahan critical HRD model, this paper suggests TFHRD actions towards transnational feminist solidarity and sustainability through decolonising gendered discourse and practices in HRD.

Gender and conceptual breadth of barriers to higher education in Asian countries

AbstractPsychological studies of the denial of prejudice and discrimination have suggested that although members of target groups are sensitive to episodes of discrimination, they may deny episodes of discrimination to maintain a positive self‐image. Here, through two studies, we investigated the role of the perceiver and target gender in shaping perceived barriers to education from a transnational feminist perspective. The participants were 132 Japanese university students (Study 1) and 1143 students from four Asian countries (Bangladesh, China, Myanmar, and Japan) (Study 2). They read three vignettes depicting different types of obstacles to higher education and rated the extent to which each example constituted a barrier to education. Our results support the sensitivity hypothesis. Regardless of their cultural background, the female participants tended to perceive more barriers to education than their male counterparts. However, the denial hypothesis was not consistently supported. The authors discuss the meaning of denial of educational barriers among female students and future directions.

The Voices of Transnational MotherScholars of Emergent Bilinguals

In this article, we—three Asian MotherScholars in the field of language and literacy education—conducted a collaborative self-study to examine how our individual and shared experiences as transnational mothers of emergent bilinguals have shaped our ways of promoting bilingualism and biliteracy. Our study drew on transnational feminist perspectives and used multimodal data and narratives shared in an online inquiry group. We highlighted ways we leverage our strengths and make conscious efforts to navigate burdens rooted in monolingual ideologies and linguistic hegemony as we raise our bilingual children. We also found how inquiring collectively into our experiences has helped us cultivate critical consciousness and build transnational solidarity. Through our stories, we emphasized the urgency of challenging inequities and pervasive monolingual ideologies within U.S. schools, as well as the necessity of creating a space for immigrant mothers to inquire into their experiences and to support each other.

Guest Editors' Introduction: The Politics of Translation: Transnational Feminist Perspectives

Guest Editors' Introduction: The Politics of Translation: Transnational Feminist Perspectives

Ask a Feminist: Jennifer Fluri Discusses the Gender Politics of the US Withdrawal from Afghanistan with Sandra McEvoy

On this episode of Ask a Feminist, Sandra McEvoy speaks to Jennifer Fluri about what the United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan means for Afghan women and for the feminist movement in Afghanistan. Jennifer’s expertise as a geographer and her transnational feminist perspective are sorely needed in this perilous moment. As the withdrawal was underway, we heard familiar concerns—voiced by pundits and politicians—about the plight of Afghan women under the Taliban. But the broader context of the long US occupation, its effects on gender relations, and the history of women’s organizing in Afghanistan makes for a much more complicated picture. Jennifer—a professor of geography at University of Colorado, Boulder, who has worked in and on Afghanistan for almost twenty years—illuminates this complex history in this conversation with Sandra, who is clinical associate professor of political science at Boston University and a member of the Signs editorial board. This episode is available as a podcast at http://signsjournal.org/feed/podcast/signs-ask-a-feminist.

A Transnational Feminist Perspective on the US-NATO Military Withdrawal from Afghanistan: In Conversation with Malalai Joya

A Transnational Feminist Perspective on the US-NATO Military Withdrawal from Afghanistan: In Conversation with Malalai Joya

Redirecting Currents: Theoretical Wayfinding with Latinx Folkloristics and Women of Color Transnational Feminisms

Abstract The introduction to the special issue of JAF “Redirecting Currents: Theoretical Wayfinding with Latinx Folkloristics and Women of Color Transnational Feminisms” approaches Latinx folklore studies from transnational feminist perspectives. The issue engages with folklore key terms used by researchers, community members, public sector workers, artists, and activists. By using an extended metaphor of aquatic movements, the introduction elucidates how lexical discontinuities and connections allow for a transparent conversation of intellectual and/or ethnographic distortions, and it acknowledges the power of writing as process and the politics of remapping the field of contemporary folklore studies. In this model, a metaphor of affective transcultural cartographies is employed to frame ideas in and of racialized spaces. The authors also discuss the poetics and historical entanglements of folklorists and postcolonial thought with the Enlightenment, and how these vexed and intimate relations are situated in language, culture, and power. The introduction summarizes the keyword essays that follow and also poses some questions about future work in folklore studies based on similar approaches.

From Belarus to Black Lives Matter: Rethinking protests in Belarus through a transnational feminist perspective

This article examines the lack of solidarity between the Black Lives Matter protests in the U.S. and the anti-authoritarian uprising in Belarus in 2020. Specifically, I explore how distant geographies and feminist communities can relate to each other and thus challenge the rise of right-wing conservatism, white supremacy, and neoliberal authoritarianism. This article relies on auto-ethnography and the exploration of public media, political essays, and scholarly contributions discussing the meanings of the BLM and Belarusian protests. Through critical self-reflection and by deploying the concepts of ‘exile’ and ‘transnational feminist solidarity,’ this article suggests a possibility for alternative transnational feminist connections attentive to the complexities of global power relations and uneven east/west interconnections. Rethinking the current possibilities for solidarities may lead to seeing how the uprising in Belarus and the BLM protests have points of connection on the grounds of state-sanctioned violence, neoliberal enclosures, suppression of political dissent, and their racialized/colonial roots. However, forging transnational solidarities also requires a certain work of reflection on how political protests may uphold global racial/colonial logic and overshadow racial violence. Therefore, in this article, I foreground how post-Soviet vulnerability may help disrupt the status quo or the privilege of whiteness instead of reinforcing it.

Battered South‐Asian diasporic women: Culture, secrets and work

AbstractResearch indicates that women's experiences of domestic violence (DV), perpetrated by intimate male partners, impacts their work and workplaces (e.g., Showalter, 2016). South‐Asian diasporic (SAD) battered women tend to keep their DV experiences secret (e.g., Tonsing, 2014). Workplaces may be one of the few places where women experiencing DV disclose secrets (e.g., Murray & Powell, 2007). Utilizing a transnational feminist perspective, we carried out an integrative review process on scholarship from 2000 to 2020 pertaining to workplace implications of DV for SAD women. We make three contributions: we synthesize the cultural norms surrounding SAD women and DV to illuminate why these women keep their experiences secret; next, we braid these threads into a Cultural sensitivity, Organizational preparedness, Recognition and Engagement framework to highlight how workplaces can mitigate the experiences of SAD battered women employees; and finally we highlight how workplaces may support other ethnic minority migrant and refugee women experiencing DV.

Navigating Intersectional Stigma: Strategies for Coping Among Cisgender Women of Color.

Intersectionality is a critical tool for understanding how socially constructed categories shape multiple dimensions of lived experience. In this study, we apply an intersectional lens to explore how women of color from two different contexts, Hyderabad, India and Chicago, Illinois, manage gendered forms of stigma and oppression as they converge with other devalued statuses, namely living with HIV or having a history of drug use or incarceration. Applying intersectional stigma as our conceptual framework, and drawing from transnational feminist perspectives, we identified two overarching themes. Women in both contexts combat stigma by employing strategies of concealment within their romantic and familial systems. Moreover, women's roles as mothers were critical sources for managing their complex illnesses and for accessing support. Using these experiences of stigma against women of color as our analytic lens, we offer an intersectional framework for qualitative health research involving marginalized cisgender women of color in transnational contexts.

Women’s participation in community development in rural Ghana: The effects of colonialism, neoliberalism, and patriarchy

ABSTRACT Women’s empowerment and gender equality have been given attention by development practitioners and communities over the last two decades. Studies show, however, that in the face of the increase attention to gender equality in community development, women’s advancement, and participation in both developed and developing countries are restricted. The situation of women involvement in the community development process in Ghana is abysmal. The purpose of this study was to ascertain how colonialism, patriarchy and neoliberalism serve as barriers to women within community development processes in rural Ghana. This paper is approached from transnational feminist perspective. A total of twelve (12) women from three randomly selected rural communities in Ghana were interviewed about their community development experiences. The findings implicate Western influence and structural factors in the low participation of women in community development processes in rural Ghana. This study found that Western interference in the form of the superimposition of a neoliberal capitalist agenda has had a negative consequence on the level of participation of women in their communities. This ideology has imbued in women individualistic ideals to the detriment of traditional communal life. The women were particularly disadvantaged by the reliance on level of education and fluency in English, as requirements for local government positions since English is the national business language. The existing patriarchal norms and values in rural communities such as traditional gender roles and “name calling” militate against women within the context of community development. Western interference, colonialism, patriarchy, and capitalist ideologies continue to hinder the involvement of women in the development of their communities. It is therefore important to address these issues to help better the lives of women in rural Ghana.

Women’s Work and Assets: Considering Property Ownership from a Transnational Feminist Perspective

Development literature on global gender empowerment devotes much attention to employment, a code word for the inclusion of women’s labor in the global market. Recent work in transnational feminisms shows that the emphasis on employment over assets may not prevent exploitation of labor and perpetuity of poverty. This paper first highlights research on how women are increasingly taking on too much responsibility, working in a confluence of survival-oriented activities that undermine their own well-being. I also address how women are increasingly able to get out of poverty: when they can labor in such a way that they are not merely working to survive but also working for accumulation of their own material assets, foremost of which is basic housing. Finally, I consider these transnational feminist insights about the importance of housing for women in light of philosophical concerns about property ownership, specifically Locke’s theory of property. In justifying property rights through labor, and arguing against the state’s right to usurp property, a Lockean can give a defense against forced evictions that still occur in some contexts and give support for a normative connection between women’s labor and assets.

Genocide, rape, and careless disregard: media ethics and the problematic reporting on Yazidi survivors of ISIS captivity

ABSTRACT In this article, we use a transnational feminist perspective to explore how English language media reported on Yazidi women who survived abduction by the self-declared Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) during the 2014 genocidal attacks. Through a content analysis of 75 online sources from 2014 and 2015, we found widespread breaches of United Nations Global Protection Cluster Guidelines (UN) for ethical reporting on gender violence that potentially compromise the safety and well-being of survivors, and increase the risk of re-victimization and collective stigmatization of Yazidi women. These findings suggest a “hypocrisy of protectionism” as a component of predatory journalism in the War on Terror, and contribute to feminist media scholarship and humanitarian efforts to better serve survivors of gender-based violence in conflict settings.

Gender, North–South relations: reviewing the Global Gag Rule and the defunding of UNFPA under President Trump

In 2017, American President Donald Trump reinstated the ‘global gag rule’(GGR). This order bans new funding to nongovernmental organisations that provide abortion as a method of family planning, lobby to make abortion laws less restrictive, or provide information, referrals or counselling on abortions. In the same year the Trump administration defunded The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). The latter is reviewed against the backdrop of the conflict in Syria. These policies draw upon, and reproduce, normative representations of women as vulnerable, weak, passive and maternal. Focusing on women’s access to abortion following wartime rape, the meanings and implications of these policies are reviewed. Transnational and postcolonial feminist perspectives are used to unpack the core themes of this piece: gender, reproductive health care and foreign economic policy. Three main arguments are made: (1) US foreign policy on abortion under the Trump administration draws implicitly on conservative ideas about gender, sexuality and maternity; (2) denying female survivors of rape access to abortion – which is discriminatory and violates key international instruments – is a form of structural violence that amounts to torture; and (3) the GGR and the defunding of UNFPA reproduce structural inequalities between the Global North and the Global South.

Strata and Strategies of Teaching about the Global “Other” Using Critical Feminist Pedagogical Praxis

In this paper I analyze the way “globalization” is deployed in U.S. universities as a value-addition. I explore issues of teaching about the global “other,” as well as the “third world” and other unfamiliar, objectified spaces. Through critical discourse analysis of syllabi I outline some representational and pedagogical trends. I also draw from my experience of teaching globalization-focused courses, including courses on transnational feminisms, international literature, social movements, migrations and socio-economic exchanges to undergraduate students. Teaching about "the other" often leads to a multiplier effect of "othering" within the classroom. Using transnational feminist perspectives, I argue that teaching such classes, on "global" "transnational" or "international" women, gender, sexuality and feminisms require de-centering not just dominant paradigms but also of oneself as purveyor of insider/global knowledge. I also argue, like many others before me, that a classroom can serve as a site for epistemic injustices and colonizing acts, and we must attempt to find ways in which such neo-colonial damages can be mitigated. This paper is an exercise in finding some ways to de-center and decolonize dominant discourses on the global "other” and suggest critical and compassionate pedagogical strategies.

On agency and empowerment in a #MeToo world

In the midst of the #MeToo movement sweeping across different societies, what opportunities and challenges exist for changing extant gender structures and systems that have allowed for sexual harassment and assault to take shape? Such a discussion provokes questions around what kinds of feminisms, both as philosophical traditions and as a set of praxis/practices, enable societal and organizational change. This article focuses explicitly on different notions of agency deriving from various feminist traditions to underscore possibilities for engaging in such change. Borrowing from intersectional, decolonial, postcolonial and transnational feminist perspectives, I suggest that a collectivist approach to agency is necessary for gender system change. I coin collective feminism as a way to conceptualize agency that only becomes possible through the work of many and then discuss this mode of feminism in relation to empowerment and social change toward gender equality.

Postfeminism – for whom or by whom?

This article explores postfeminism in the context of beauty consumption in the Global South. Advocating a transnational feminist perspective, it construes incorporation of postfeminism into the Global South in two senses - as the reception of a globally circulated discourse and as the embodiment(s) of it in different dimensions of lived femininity. Specifically, it examines how postfeminism is interpreted by black South African women in their beauty consumption. A combined, discursive-and-embodied approach is advanced to transcend the body/discourse binary and hence reflect on the intricate relationship between postfeminist discourse and the body in which it materialises. The article concludes by discussing the discursive dynamics of arriving at the subjective understanding(s) of the Western cultural logic of postfeminism in the cultural reality of postcolonial Africa, and by suggesting the methodology of research on discourse and beauty.

About the Contributors

About the Contributors

Voices of Yazidi women: Perceptions of journalistic practices in the reporting on ISIS sexual violence

In this article, we use a global transnational feminist perspective to explore Yazidi women's perceptions of the nature and impact of media reporting on women and girls who survived captivity, rape, and trafficking by the self-declared Islamic State (ISIS). Through 26 face-to-face interviews of displaced Yazidi women, we identify five narrative themes that characterize interviewees' reflections in the wake of these atrocities, including the sense of pressure women felt from journalists and other sources to share their stories of ISIS captivity; the belief that some journalistic practices are putting women and girls at risk; the recognition of the severe emotional toll on survivors' that results from repeatedly telling their stories; the sense of urgency and usefulness of going public nonetheless; and the resultant feelings of frustration and betrayal that the willingness to share their traumatic experiences has not resulted in a concerted global response to the genocidal attacks against the Yazidi people. Our findings suggest a paradoxical narrative of victimization and resistance in women's media engagement that is indicative of a kind of “bargaining at the intersection of patriarchies” that has implications for journalists covering sexual violence in conflict zones.