Reviewed by: Shimmering Images: Trans Cinema, Embodiment, and the Aesthetics of Change by Eliza Steinbock Eli Anderson Shimmering Images: Trans Cinema, Embodiment, and the Aesthetics of Change by Eliza Steinbock. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2019, 234 pp., $95.52 hardcover, $25.95 paper. Shimmering Images: Trans Cinema, Embodiment, and the Aesthetics of Change by Eliza Steinbock critically engages trans film through the concept of the shimmer, broadly defined as a glimmer, a flicker, or an abrupt and flashy change. Steinbock also roots the idea of the shimmer in the theoretical work of Roland Barthes, arguing that as a device, the shimmer is both an aesthetic and explanatory tool of trans cinema. Steinbock situates their conception of trans-ness in earlier discussions by queer theorists such as Jack Halberstam, Susan Stryker, and Sandy Stone, arguing that trans ways of being "are process-oriented, rather than object-oriented" (12). Borrowing from Stone, they consider transgender persons as a genre rather than a strict definition and seek to embrace the ambiguities and nuances of trans experiences (14). To account for the multiplicity of trans experiences and their overlaps with the experiences of queer and intersex individuals, they use the term trans-inter-queer to describe the various embodiments and ontologies reflected in the films they investigate. In their first chapter, "Shimmering Phantasmagoria," Steinbock compares trans experiences of embodiment with early phantasmagoric films, arguing that both are created through a mixture of scientific advancement and are often considered fundamentally illusory to outsiders. The phantasmagoric aesthetic, which began in proto-cinema, utilizes the shimmer as part of its trick; this parallels many mainstream conceptions of trans-ness which consider medical transition as illusory, as "wavering on the tip of deception/astonishment" (32). Steinbock contends that the phantasmagoric aesthetic, with its emphasis on this shimmering, provides a method for understanding and revealing other ways of being outside of the gender and sex binary, which often renders the lives of those who do not have, or in some cases even desire, a "definite true sex", as unliveable (34). Borrowing from Walter Benjamin's theory of "cinema-as-surgical theatre", Steinbock notes that the process of cutting and gluing celluloid stills mirrors the process of surgically cutting and suturing the trans-inter-queer body (35). The surgical altering of physical bodies is akin to the editing of early cinema, [End Page 257] which relies on tricking or fooling the audience via this suture. Steinbock points to the early work of filmmaker George Méliès, who used this literal cutting of celluloid to turn men into women and back again on screen; Steinbock uses this cinematic sex change to argue that this "transsexual logic" has been a part of the cinema "since its inception," bringing new meaning to Susan Stryker's notes on the cinematic qualiti
{"title":"Shimmering Images: Trans Cinema, Embodiment, and the Aesthetics of Change by Eliza Steinbock (review)","authors":"","doi":"10.1353/ff.2023.a907932","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ff.2023.a907932","url":null,"abstract":"Reviewed by: Shimmering Images: Trans Cinema, Embodiment, and the Aesthetics of Change by Eliza Steinbock Eli Anderson Shimmering Images: Trans Cinema, Embodiment, and the Aesthetics of Change by Eliza Steinbock. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2019, 234 pp., $95.52 hardcover, $25.95 paper. Shimmering Images: Trans Cinema, Embodiment, and the Aesthetics of Change by Eliza Steinbock critically engages trans film through the concept of the shimmer, broadly defined as a glimmer, a flicker, or an abrupt and flashy change. Steinbock also roots the idea of the shimmer in the theoretical work of Roland Barthes, arguing that as a device, the shimmer is both an aesthetic and explanatory tool of trans cinema. Steinbock situates their conception of trans-ness in earlier discussions by queer theorists such as Jack Halberstam, Susan Stryker, and Sandy Stone, arguing that trans ways of being \"are process-oriented, rather than object-oriented\" (12). Borrowing from Stone, they consider transgender persons as a genre rather than a strict definition and seek to embrace the ambiguities and nuances of trans experiences (14). To account for the multiplicity of trans experiences and their overlaps with the experiences of queer and intersex individuals, they use the term trans-inter-queer to describe the various embodiments and ontologies reflected in the films they investigate. In their first chapter, \"Shimmering Phantasmagoria,\" Steinbock compares trans experiences of embodiment with early phantasmagoric films, arguing that both are created through a mixture of scientific advancement and are often considered fundamentally illusory to outsiders. The phantasmagoric aesthetic, which began in proto-cinema, utilizes the shimmer as part of its trick; this parallels many mainstream conceptions of trans-ness which consider medical transition as illusory, as \"wavering on the tip of deception/astonishment\" (32). Steinbock contends that the phantasmagoric aesthetic, with its emphasis on this shimmering, provides a method for understanding and revealing other ways of being outside of the gender and sex binary, which often renders the lives of those who do not have, or in some cases even desire, a \"definite true sex\", as unliveable (34). Borrowing from Walter Benjamin's theory of \"cinema-as-surgical theatre\", Steinbock notes that the process of cutting and gluing celluloid stills mirrors the process of surgically cutting and suturing the trans-inter-queer body (35). The surgical altering of physical bodies is akin to the editing of early cinema, [End Page 257] which relies on tricking or fooling the audience via this suture. Steinbock points to the early work of filmmaker George Méliès, who used this literal cutting of celluloid to turn men into women and back again on screen; Steinbock uses this cinematic sex change to argue that this \"transsexual logic\" has been a part of the cinema \"since its inception,\" bringing new meaning to Susan Stryker's notes on the cinematic qualiti","PeriodicalId":190295,"journal":{"name":"Feminist Formations","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135144591","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract: This article examines an under-explored topic of labor precarity of Chinese feminist and LGBT NGO activism from the perspective of social reproduction. Contextualizing the intimate connection between the Chinese party-state outsourcing social service delivery to global civil society and the burgeoning of feminist and LGBT NGOs since the 1990s, it argues that the party-state relies on the social reproductive functions of these NGO while containing their political influence; at the same time, the transnational non-profit funding complex utilized these NGOs for political intervention in China. Arguing against a binary framework of civil society versus state and resistance versus oppression, this article centers the lived experiences of feminist and LGBT activist workers and highlights the contradiction and interplay of agency and conformity of these workers in the state- and market- orchestrated processes of moralization, illegalization, and professionalization, whereby they reshape, revise, or reinforce norms associated with gender, sexuality, and neoliberal standards of productivity and efficiency. Building on Marxist feminist theorization of labor, this article valorizes NGO labor as socially valued work and calls for attention to the issue of labor precarity of NGO activist workers under the backdrop of increasing state violence and market cooptation in many parts of the world, especially in the global South.
{"title":"Labor Precarity of Chinese Feminist and LGBT NGO Activism—a Social Reproduction Perspective","authors":"Stephanie Yingyi Wang","doi":"10.1353/ff.2023.a907921","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ff.2023.a907921","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: This article examines an under-explored topic of labor precarity of Chinese feminist and LGBT NGO activism from the perspective of social reproduction. Contextualizing the intimate connection between the Chinese party-state outsourcing social service delivery to global civil society and the burgeoning of feminist and LGBT NGOs since the 1990s, it argues that the party-state relies on the social reproductive functions of these NGO while containing their political influence; at the same time, the transnational non-profit funding complex utilized these NGOs for political intervention in China. Arguing against a binary framework of civil society versus state and resistance versus oppression, this article centers the lived experiences of feminist and LGBT activist workers and highlights the contradiction and interplay of agency and conformity of these workers in the state- and market- orchestrated processes of moralization, illegalization, and professionalization, whereby they reshape, revise, or reinforce norms associated with gender, sexuality, and neoliberal standards of productivity and efficiency. Building on Marxist feminist theorization of labor, this article valorizes NGO labor as socially valued work and calls for attention to the issue of labor precarity of NGO activist workers under the backdrop of increasing state violence and market cooptation in many parts of the world, especially in the global South.","PeriodicalId":190295,"journal":{"name":"Feminist Formations","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135144595","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract: The reproductive justice framework shifted understandings and analyses of reproductive oppression beyond individual 'choice' by incorporating analyses of structural injustice, racism, and social and economic concerns. In this article, we build on understandings of the reproductive justice framework by integrating a postcolonial lens and bring the powerful conceptual tools of postcolonial feminist theory to bear on issues of reproductive oppression in India. We articulate the elements of such a postcolonial lens—the transnational operation of race, Orientalism, the subjective experience of colonialism as well as the role of the nation-state and nationalism in shaping reproductive lives—and demonstrate how these elements, along with religion, caste, and right-wing Hindu fundamentalism, structure reproductive oppression in India. Through our discussion of the issues of sterilization, sex-selective abortion, and commercial surrogacy in India we reveal how the underlying coloniality of Malthusian ideas of controlling population to reduce poverty, Orientalist and racist tropes of moral and intellectual inferiority and sexual licentiousness, and the Orientalist and colonial framing of the "East" as backward, uncivilized, and dependent clearly shape reproductive issues in India. Offering a nuanced analysis of the heterogeneity of reproductive oppression within India, our discussion brings reproductive justice into conversation with a feminist postcolonial perspective to foreground the continued impact of colonialism, neo-colonialism, and settler colonialism on reproductive oppression.
{"title":"Decolonial Reproductive Justice: Analyzing Reproductive Oppression in India","authors":"Sanjula Rajat, Margaret A. McLaren","doi":"10.1353/ff.2023.a907922","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ff.2023.a907922","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: The reproductive justice framework shifted understandings and analyses of reproductive oppression beyond individual 'choice' by incorporating analyses of structural injustice, racism, and social and economic concerns. In this article, we build on understandings of the reproductive justice framework by integrating a postcolonial lens and bring the powerful conceptual tools of postcolonial feminist theory to bear on issues of reproductive oppression in India. We articulate the elements of such a postcolonial lens—the transnational operation of race, Orientalism, the subjective experience of colonialism as well as the role of the nation-state and nationalism in shaping reproductive lives—and demonstrate how these elements, along with religion, caste, and right-wing Hindu fundamentalism, structure reproductive oppression in India. Through our discussion of the issues of sterilization, sex-selective abortion, and commercial surrogacy in India we reveal how the underlying coloniality of Malthusian ideas of controlling population to reduce poverty, Orientalist and racist tropes of moral and intellectual inferiority and sexual licentiousness, and the Orientalist and colonial framing of the \"East\" as backward, uncivilized, and dependent clearly shape reproductive issues in India. Offering a nuanced analysis of the heterogeneity of reproductive oppression within India, our discussion brings reproductive justice into conversation with a feminist postcolonial perspective to foreground the continued impact of colonialism, neo-colonialism, and settler colonialism on reproductive oppression.","PeriodicalId":190295,"journal":{"name":"Feminist Formations","volume":"33 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135145249","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Rajani Bhatia, Sarah Valdez, Chloe Blaise, Ola Kalu, Jessica Ramsawak
Abstract: Birth justice is a vibrant, national movement in the United States, which has motivated synergistic action at the local level. This article discusses a community-based participatory research (CBPR) project in Albany, New York with a significant feminist pedagogical component. The Albany Birth Justice Storytelling project formed through collaboration between a community birth justice organization and the University at Albany. Inspired by a combined focus on birth and research justice approaches, we adapted photo-voice and transformative storytelling to co-create qualitative data in the form of a video narrative on local experiences of "birthing while Black." Our stories echo themes documented by birth justice scholar-activists elsewhere in the country including racism within clinical settings. The research promoted self-reflective, trauma-informed education and care among co-researchers including University at Albany students and storytellers from Albany County. Feminist pedagogy contributed to two goals of CBPR: equalizing power differentials and enhancing mutual learning between university and community.
{"title":"The Albany Birth Justice Storytelling Project: Integrating Feminist Pedagogy into Research Design","authors":"Rajani Bhatia, Sarah Valdez, Chloe Blaise, Ola Kalu, Jessica Ramsawak","doi":"10.1353/ff.2023.a907923","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ff.2023.a907923","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: Birth justice is a vibrant, national movement in the United States, which has motivated synergistic action at the local level. This article discusses a community-based participatory research (CBPR) project in Albany, New York with a significant feminist pedagogical component. The Albany Birth Justice Storytelling project formed through collaboration between a community birth justice organization and the University at Albany. Inspired by a combined focus on birth and research justice approaches, we adapted photo-voice and transformative storytelling to co-create qualitative data in the form of a video narrative on local experiences of \"birthing while Black.\" Our stories echo themes documented by birth justice scholar-activists elsewhere in the country including racism within clinical settings. The research promoted self-reflective, trauma-informed education and care among co-researchers including University at Albany students and storytellers from Albany County. Feminist pedagogy contributed to two goals of CBPR: equalizing power differentials and enhancing mutual learning between university and community.","PeriodicalId":190295,"journal":{"name":"Feminist Formations","volume":"67 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135145252","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Because daughter is also mother Janice Lee (bio) Sometimes, a very old, familiar voice speaks or writes through me. Recently, these are the words that keep writing themselves: 딸도 엄마니까 because daughter is also mother 버린딸도 엄마니까 because an abandoned daughter is also a mother The words become unfamiliar memory which becomes a geologic record of consolidation, reconsolidation, untangling, retangling, becoming again and again. When we remember, don't we become undone each time in the doing of the remembering? I remember learning to skip rocks by the river. I hardly remember my mother standing there showing me how. Her own corporeal disappearance has seeped into the memory of her corporeal body, but she isn't fading. As she became dust and ashes and sediment, the memory of her body too becomes dust and ashes and sediment, and becomes more absorbed into me, becomes more of me. We grow into each other, clasts of mother/daughter in nonlinear time. More of my grief becomes her grief. The grief of my mother becomes my own. 딸도 엄마니까 Once I was fire, choking on my own breath, the breath that kept the fire alive, the breath I consumed and that consumed me. I didn't know how to stop, how to stop myself from wanting more and more, until I saw my own reflection in the vast ocean, fire, the moon looking down, fire, on the surface of the ocean, fire, the sky and smoke sifting through, fire. I couldn't stop myself from wanting more, from diving in to embrace myself, from wanting to be submerged in moonlight, so I didn't stop myself, and arrived inside my own reflection as fire and evaporated as smoke and whisper. The vibrations of the whispers create [End Page 249] ripples on the ocean's surface, and the ripples are the stories of everything I destroyed and witnessed as fire. 버린딸도 엄마니까 On the morning after my death, I took a breath that was an unbreath. All of my dogs gathered on the bed beside me; here the times or dates of our deaths no longer intersecting at inappropriate times, but gathered like a pile of laundry—familiar, haphazard, full of bodily smell and history, the vehicles of our bodies gone like wispy smoke but gathered, nevertheless, here. 딸도 엄마니까 because daughter is also mother 버린딸도 엄마니까 because an abandoned daughter is also a mother [End Page 250] Janice Lee Janice Lee (she/they) is a Korean American writer, teacher, spiritual scholar, and shamanic healer. She is the author of eight books of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry, most recently: Imagine a Death (Texas Review Press, 2021), Separation Anxiety (CLASH Books, 2022), a finalist for the 2023 Oregon Book Award, and A roundtable, unanimous dreamers chime in, a collaborative novel co-authored with Brenda Iijima (Meekling Press, 2023). Her next book seeks to explore ties between the Korean cultural concept of han, narratives of inherited trauma in the West, the Korean folk traditions and shamanic practices of her ancestors (especially rituals around death), the history and creation of Korean scr
{"title":"Because daughter is also mother","authors":"Janice Lee","doi":"10.1353/ff.2023.a907929","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ff.2023.a907929","url":null,"abstract":"Because daughter is also mother Janice Lee (bio) Sometimes, a very old, familiar voice speaks or writes through me. Recently, these are the words that keep writing themselves: 딸도 엄마니까 because daughter is also mother 버린딸도 엄마니까 because an abandoned daughter is also a mother The words become unfamiliar memory which becomes a geologic record of consolidation, reconsolidation, untangling, retangling, becoming again and again. When we remember, don't we become undone each time in the doing of the remembering? I remember learning to skip rocks by the river. I hardly remember my mother standing there showing me how. Her own corporeal disappearance has seeped into the memory of her corporeal body, but she isn't fading. As she became dust and ashes and sediment, the memory of her body too becomes dust and ashes and sediment, and becomes more absorbed into me, becomes more of me. We grow into each other, clasts of mother/daughter in nonlinear time. More of my grief becomes her grief. The grief of my mother becomes my own. 딸도 엄마니까 Once I was fire, choking on my own breath, the breath that kept the fire alive, the breath I consumed and that consumed me. I didn't know how to stop, how to stop myself from wanting more and more, until I saw my own reflection in the vast ocean, fire, the moon looking down, fire, on the surface of the ocean, fire, the sky and smoke sifting through, fire. I couldn't stop myself from wanting more, from diving in to embrace myself, from wanting to be submerged in moonlight, so I didn't stop myself, and arrived inside my own reflection as fire and evaporated as smoke and whisper. The vibrations of the whispers create [End Page 249] ripples on the ocean's surface, and the ripples are the stories of everything I destroyed and witnessed as fire. 버린딸도 엄마니까 On the morning after my death, I took a breath that was an unbreath. All of my dogs gathered on the bed beside me; here the times or dates of our deaths no longer intersecting at inappropriate times, but gathered like a pile of laundry—familiar, haphazard, full of bodily smell and history, the vehicles of our bodies gone like wispy smoke but gathered, nevertheless, here. 딸도 엄마니까 because daughter is also mother 버린딸도 엄마니까 because an abandoned daughter is also a mother [End Page 250] Janice Lee Janice Lee (she/they) is a Korean American writer, teacher, spiritual scholar, and shamanic healer. She is the author of eight books of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry, most recently: Imagine a Death (Texas Review Press, 2021), Separation Anxiety (CLASH Books, 2022), a finalist for the 2023 Oregon Book Award, and A roundtable, unanimous dreamers chime in, a collaborative novel co-authored with Brenda Iijima (Meekling Press, 2023). Her next book seeks to explore ties between the Korean cultural concept of han, narratives of inherited trauma in the West, the Korean folk traditions and shamanic practices of her ancestors (especially rituals around death), the history and creation of Korean scr","PeriodicalId":190295,"journal":{"name":"Feminist Formations","volume":"39 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135145256","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Fauzia Erfan Ahmed, Jyotsana Parajuli, Anna Lucia Feldman
Abstract: Violence against working women strikes at the heart of economic empowerment programs—the very programs that are intended to empower them. If economic empowerment is defined as women's control over their income, violence as patriarchal deterrence prevents those women from controlling the money that they have worked so hard to earn. Therefore, women who earn are not inevitably empowered through their participation in the labor force. We argue that economic empowerment cannot be defined in terms of women's labor force participation alone. Gender-based violence sustains patriarchy. As part of the development of sociolegal empowerment theory, we introduce patriarchal deterrence as a new concept, which goes in tandem with patriarchal backlash theory, further clarifying analyses of low female labor force participation. As patriarchal backlash, violence punishes women who have joined the workforce; as patriarchal deterrence, it deters women from even starting to work. Arguing that income generation is insufficient, we present a theory of socio-legal empowerment as a necessary corollary of economic empowerment, which integrates concepts of legal empowerment and social accountability. Our theory has four components, which can be applied to assess a justice system. First is societal embeddedness, which measures how context-specific it is. For example, in Muslim countries, informal justice systems, which utilize feminist interpretations of Islam, are more embedded in local values and therefore more effective. By analyzing feminist interpretations of Islam as an imperative measure of effective justice systems for Muslim communities, we challenge Orientalist binaries of Islam versus women's rights. Second is social accountability, which assesses whether its verdicts and processes have social sanction. Third is its gender transformativeness, or social change potential, which addresses its capacity to build awareness. Fourth is its costs not only in terms of legal expenses but also of physical proximity which eliminates childcare expenses. In sum, we illustrate that earning income, though necessary, is insufficient for women's economic empowerment. Through the analysis of the NGO-ReformedShalish (informal justice system) in Bangladesh, we illustrate how socio-legal empowerment, in theory and practice, is also needed to empower working women.
{"title":"Socio-Legal Empowerment for Working Women in Bangladesh","authors":"Fauzia Erfan Ahmed, Jyotsana Parajuli, Anna Lucia Feldman","doi":"10.1353/ff.2023.a907919","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ff.2023.a907919","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: Violence against working women strikes at the heart of economic empowerment programs—the very programs that are intended to empower them. If economic empowerment is defined as women's control over their income, violence as patriarchal deterrence prevents those women from controlling the money that they have worked so hard to earn. Therefore, women who earn are not inevitably empowered through their participation in the labor force. We argue that economic empowerment cannot be defined in terms of women's labor force participation alone. Gender-based violence sustains patriarchy. As part of the development of sociolegal empowerment theory, we introduce patriarchal deterrence as a new concept, which goes in tandem with patriarchal backlash theory, further clarifying analyses of low female labor force participation. As patriarchal backlash, violence punishes women who have joined the workforce; as patriarchal deterrence, it deters women from even starting to work. Arguing that income generation is insufficient, we present a theory of socio-legal empowerment as a necessary corollary of economic empowerment, which integrates concepts of legal empowerment and social accountability. Our theory has four components, which can be applied to assess a justice system. First is societal embeddedness, which measures how context-specific it is. For example, in Muslim countries, informal justice systems, which utilize feminist interpretations of Islam, are more embedded in local values and therefore more effective. By analyzing feminist interpretations of Islam as an imperative measure of effective justice systems for Muslim communities, we challenge Orientalist binaries of Islam versus women's rights. Second is social accountability, which assesses whether its verdicts and processes have social sanction. Third is its gender transformativeness, or social change potential, which addresses its capacity to build awareness. Fourth is its costs not only in terms of legal expenses but also of physical proximity which eliminates childcare expenses. In sum, we illustrate that earning income, though necessary, is insufficient for women's economic empowerment. Through the analysis of the NGO-ReformedShalish (informal justice system) in Bangladesh, we illustrate how socio-legal empowerment, in theory and practice, is also needed to empower working women.","PeriodicalId":190295,"journal":{"name":"Feminist Formations","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135145113","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
H. Kaur, Katie Byrd, Nadia R. Davis, Taylor M. Williams
Abstract:While small, midwestern towns across the United States have become the center of the battle against Critical Race Theory and identity politics in education over the past several years, one small town in Michigan became the launching pad for a grassroots gender-consciousness program grounded firmly in the experiences of young Black women. The Gender Consciousness Project (GCP) has flourished into a program co-facilitated by previous participants across several schools in the metro Detroit area, all while national- and state-level discourse became increasingly hostile towards any material or theoretical support of Black women's lives. In this paper, we—the three pilot participants of GCP and one co-facilitator—return to the recordings of the first iteration of GCP to examine how exactly a small-town consciousness-raising project took root amidst these circumstances. We explore how the project cultivated, and how its primary facilitator and founder conceptualized, a Black feminist consciousness-raising methodology which centered the agency and capacity for consciousness of young Black women, or Black girls, specifically. Through this analysis, we offer that one such Black feminist consciousness-raising methodology is to spark small revolutions through the everyday possibilities for resistance and refusal of cooptation.
{"title":"Small Revolutions: Methodologies of Black Feminist Consciousness-Raising and the Politics of Ordinary Resistance","authors":"H. Kaur, Katie Byrd, Nadia R. Davis, Taylor M. Williams","doi":"10.1353/ff.2023.a902065","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ff.2023.a902065","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:While small, midwestern towns across the United States have become the center of the battle against Critical Race Theory and identity politics in education over the past several years, one small town in Michigan became the launching pad for a grassroots gender-consciousness program grounded firmly in the experiences of young Black women. The Gender Consciousness Project (GCP) has flourished into a program co-facilitated by previous participants across several schools in the metro Detroit area, all while national- and state-level discourse became increasingly hostile towards any material or theoretical support of Black women's lives. In this paper, we—the three pilot participants of GCP and one co-facilitator—return to the recordings of the first iteration of GCP to examine how exactly a small-town consciousness-raising project took root amidst these circumstances. We explore how the project cultivated, and how its primary facilitator and founder conceptualized, a Black feminist consciousness-raising methodology which centered the agency and capacity for consciousness of young Black women, or Black girls, specifically. Through this analysis, we offer that one such Black feminist consciousness-raising methodology is to spark small revolutions through the everyday possibilities for resistance and refusal of cooptation.","PeriodicalId":190295,"journal":{"name":"Feminist Formations","volume":"30 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124117623","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:This article offers a specific methodology: an autoethnography of decolonial feminist witnessing to invite the reader into the world of the praxis of navigating institutional spaces recognizing where these entrances and departures are imperfect, messy, violent, and filled with resistance. The author offers examples of coalitional work through local and transnational experiences that were fostered through survivance in colonial systems. Recognizing how multiple institutions shape people's lives, this article highlights lived exemplars where the author traverses academic and legal institutions. The author reflects on witnessing in the courts as a legal expert witness. The role of narrative and witnessing is central to a decolonial feminist praxis; therefore, the author reflects on a state-wide consortium to end violence, where opportunities to narrate stories were facilitated in a performance. To conclude, the author reflects the self-in-coalition as a response to the material violence of coloniality in institutions.
{"title":"A Multiplicity of Selves-in-Coalition: A Decolonial Feminist Witnessing Through Autoethnography","authors":"A. Fukushima","doi":"10.1353/ff.2023.a902071","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ff.2023.a902071","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article offers a specific methodology: an autoethnography of decolonial feminist witnessing to invite the reader into the world of the praxis of navigating institutional spaces recognizing where these entrances and departures are imperfect, messy, violent, and filled with resistance. The author offers examples of coalitional work through local and transnational experiences that were fostered through survivance in colonial systems. Recognizing how multiple institutions shape people's lives, this article highlights lived exemplars where the author traverses academic and legal institutions. The author reflects on witnessing in the courts as a legal expert witness. The role of narrative and witnessing is central to a decolonial feminist praxis; therefore, the author reflects on a state-wide consortium to end violence, where opportunities to narrate stories were facilitated in a performance. To conclude, the author reflects the self-in-coalition as a response to the material violence of coloniality in institutions.","PeriodicalId":190295,"journal":{"name":"Feminist Formations","volume":"366 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116390402","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:State violence in the so-called United States impacting undocumented immigrants living under the construction of (il)legality calls for a decolonial feminist enactment of psychosocial research. This article presents a multi-scalar analysis of the embodied aftermath of state violence, enacted through the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) practice of state disappearances, on two undocumented Latina immigrants. Centering on decolonial feminisms and drawing on liberation psychology and intersectionality, this study investigates the embodied sequelae of living undocumented under the terror of ICE. This study undertakes a secondary analysis of two interviews that were selected from a larger database of in-depth interviews (N = 39). The two stories were selected considering gender and explicitness of the embodied aftermath of psychosocial torture by ICE. The data was gathered in Austin, Texas in 2019, marking a year after the two largest ICE raids in recent history which together resulted in the arrests of at least 304 Latinx immigrants in Central, South, and North Texas. ICE terror has embodied, affective, and material consequences on those who are subjected to such violence; therefore, a decolonial feminist analysis about the embodied impacts of state violence and its sequela contribute to understandings of decolonial feminist enactment of qualitative analytic methods in psychology.
{"title":"State Disappearances in the United States: A Decolonial Feminist Analysis About the Enactment of State Terror on Undocumented Immigrants by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)","authors":"Joanna Beltrán Girón","doi":"10.1353/ff.2023.a902076","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ff.2023.a902076","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:State violence in the so-called United States impacting undocumented immigrants living under the construction of (il)legality calls for a decolonial feminist enactment of psychosocial research. This article presents a multi-scalar analysis of the embodied aftermath of state violence, enacted through the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) practice of state disappearances, on two undocumented Latina immigrants. Centering on decolonial feminisms and drawing on liberation psychology and intersectionality, this study investigates the embodied sequelae of living undocumented under the terror of ICE. This study undertakes a secondary analysis of two interviews that were selected from a larger database of in-depth interviews (N = 39). The two stories were selected considering gender and explicitness of the embodied aftermath of psychosocial torture by ICE. The data was gathered in Austin, Texas in 2019, marking a year after the two largest ICE raids in recent history which together resulted in the arrests of at least 304 Latinx immigrants in Central, South, and North Texas. ICE terror has embodied, affective, and material consequences on those who are subjected to such violence; therefore, a decolonial feminist analysis about the embodied impacts of state violence and its sequela contribute to understandings of decolonial feminist enactment of qualitative analytic methods in psychology.","PeriodicalId":190295,"journal":{"name":"Feminist Formations","volume":"35 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131045221","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}