Intersectionality and “global feminisms”

So I’ve been thinking about something that Dr. Ackerly mentioned in her e-mail: “Note the course is called ‘global feminisms’”. (Let me say at the outset that I have a bit of a “thing” when it comes to nomenclature. I believe that the power to “name” something implicitly carries with it the power to “define” [...]

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Thinking feminist activism

I decided on the spur of the moment to use that particular title for my post, in part because I think this week’s readings problematize the relationship(s) between theory and activism, and because they ask us to rethink how feminist activism has developed in light of critical discussions of the subject of feminist theorizing.
Returning to [...]

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Ethics of access and the sociospatial shift

Gillian Youngs’ analysis of globalization, feminism and information society raises some challenging issues regarding the increasing relevance of “sociospatial as well as geospatial understadings of the world and the interactions that take place within it” (Youngs, 69). I found her referencing of feminist theory and practice as a potential means for articulating an ethics of [...]

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Environmental racism and “internal colonialism”

In reading Beverly Wright’s “Living and Dying in Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’”, I was pointedly reminded of an early piece that we read on intersectionality at the outset of the course. In “The Hollow Space and the Ghetto: Space, Race, and the Politics of Poverty”, Julie Anne White wrote about the racialization of poverty in America. [...]

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References for women’s rights in Turkey (Presentation Oct. 8/08)

My apologies for my poor technical skills in originally posting this reference list. Please let me know if the formatting is still an issue – I seem to be able to read it on my end.
Thanks!
Women’s rights in Turkey: References
Arat, Yesmin. “Feminists, Islamists, and Political Change in Turkey,” Political Psychology 19:1 (March 1998): 117-131.
Ecevit, F. [...]

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Kate Nash’s vision of "deconstructive equality"

I was impressed by Nash’s attempt to come up with a poststucturalist conception of equality that retains the feminist emphases on anti-essentialism and anti-foundationalism. Her focus on treatment (praxis) rather than conceptual normativity echoes some of what we’ve been reading regarding women’s lived experiences of discrimination and oppression. But I’m unsure of her argument that [...]

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theory vs. experience?

Harding and Norberg encapsulate something very fundamental in their brief introductory article. They refer to feminist attempts “to transform the methodologies and epistemologies of their disciplines”, but they also locate such attempts within “the development of more democratic social relations” (2009). At the outset, then, they reference both theory and lived experience as the benchmarks [...]

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The vulnerability of the "other"

This week’s readings, while spanning an array of geographical locations and historical contexts, share a common thread; all of them address issues of marginality and the social construction of the “other.” In the process, each author identifies how that marginalized “other” is cast in role that legitimates a kind of systemic discrimination, whether based on [...]

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Week 2 readings on methodolgy

Methodology has consistently been one of my key academic interests. Because my research focuses on relationships between religious studies, gender studies, and postcolonialism, multidisciplinary approaches have proven to be valuable tools for me.
I found myself caught off guard, then, by the fact that I was (until I read this week’s readings) unfamiliar with “intersectionality” as [...]

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grocery shopping

(I live far enough from campus that procuring a wheelchair wasn’t a feasible option for me, so what follows is my exercise in visualization during an actual trip to the grocery store this afternoon…)
First of all, it’s obvious that my home is *not* designed for someone in a wheelchair. Not only am I confined to [...]

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