Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity / Edition 1

by Chandra Talpade Mohanty

Overview

Bringing together classic and new writings of the trailblazing feminist theorist Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Feminism without Borders addresses some of the most pressing and complex issues facing contemporary feminism. Forging vital links between daily life and collective action and between theory and pedagogy, Mohanty has been at the vanguard of Third World and international feminist thought and activism for nearly two decades. This collection highlights the concerns running throughout her pioneering work: the politics of difference and solidarity, decolonizing and democratizing feminist practice, the crossing of borders, and the relation of feminist knowledge and scholarship to organizing and social movements. Mohanty offers here a sustained critique of globalization and urges a reorientation of transnational feminist practice toward anticapitalist struggles.

Feminism without Borders opens with Mohanty's influential critique of western feminism ("Under Western Eyes") and closes with a reconsideration of that piece based on her latest thinking regarding the ways that gender matters in the racial, class, and national formations of globalization. In between these essays, Mohanty meditates on the lives of women workers at different ends of the global assembly line (in India, the United Kingdom, and the United States); feminist writing on experience, identity, and community; dominant conceptions of multiculturalism and citizenship; and the corporatization of the North American academy. She considers the evolution of interdisciplinary programs like Women's Studies and Race and Ethnic Studies; pedagogies of accommodation and dissent; and transnational women's movements for grassroots ecological solutions and consumer, health, and reproductive rights. Mohanty's probing and provocative analyses of key concepts in feminist thought-"home," "sisterhood," "experience," "community"-lead the way toward a feminism without borders, a feminism fully engaged with the realities of a transnational world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780822330219
Publisher:	Duke University Press
Publication date:	02/28/2003
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	312
Sales rank:	722,532
Product dimensions:	6.13(w) x 8.95(h) x 0.84(d)

About the Author

Chandra Talpade Mohanty is Professor of Women's Studies at Hamilton College and Core Faculty at the Union Institute and University in Cincinnati. She is coeditor of Feminist Genealogies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures and Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction: Decolonization, Anticapitalist Critique, and Feminist Commitments 1

Part One. Decolonizing Feminism

1. Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses 17

2. Cartographies of Struggle: Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism 43

3. What's Home Got to Do with It? (with Biddy Martin) 85

4. Sisterhood, Coalition, and the Politics of Experience
106

5. Genealogies of Community, Home, and Nation 124

Part Two. Demystifying Capitalism

6. Women Workers and the Politics of Solidarity 139

7. Privatized Citizenship, Corporate Academies, and Feminist Projects 169

8. Race, Multiculturalism, and Pedagogies of Dissent
Part Three. Reorienting Feminism 190

9. “Under Western Eyes" Revisited: Feminist Solidarity through Anticapitalist Struggles 221

Notes 253

Bibliography 275

Index 295

What People are Saying About This

Ruth Frankenberg

The juxtaposition of these essays brings into sharp focus the theoretical framework Chandra Talpade Mohanty has developed and makes visible the enormity, the force, and the uniqueness of her contribution.
— editor of Displacing Whiteness: Essays in Social and Cultural Criticism

Angela Y. Davis

Over the last two decades, Chandra Talpade Mohanty has produced an extraordinary body of writings on transnational feminism, radically changing the way we think about such categories as 'third world women,' 'women of color' and 'globalization.' This volume combines her now classic essays with new writings that accentuate the centrality of anticapitalist feminist theories and practices to the most expansive and forward-looking version of women's studies today.

Lisa Lowe

Chandra Talpade Mohanty is unequivocally one of the most important feminist theorists and scholars writing and publishing today. In this collection, her essays take on new meaning to play important parts in what is both a dynamic full-scale analysis of the complex histories of the exploitation of women within neocolonial capitalism and an elaboration of anti-racist pedagogies and anti-capitalist solidarity practices.
— author of Immigrant Acts: On Asian American Cultural Politics

Editorial Reviews

"Chandra Talpade Mohanty is unequivocally one of the most important feminist theorists and scholars writing and publishing today. In this collection, her essays take on new meaning to play important parts in what is both a dynamic full-scale analysis of the complex histories of the exploitation of women within neocolonial capitalism and an elaboration of antiracist pedagogies and anticapitalist solidarity practices."--Lisa Lowe, author of Immigrant Acts: On Asian American Cultural Politics

"Chandra Talpade Mohanty's illuminating analyses take up some of the most urgent questions facing a transnational feminist practice today. She provides resources for feminist engagements with difference, identity politics, the commodification of knowledge, and globalization and its effects. Shifts in the global political and economic landscape as well as Mohanty's own shifting location enable her to identify exhilarating new directions for feminist theory and practice."--Sandra Harding, coeditor of Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society


"The juxtaposition of these essays brings into sharp focus the theoretical framework Chandra Talpade Mohanty has developed and makes visible the enormity, the force, and the uniqueness of her contribution."--Ruth Frankenberg, editor of Displacing Whiteness: Essays in Social and Cultural Criticism

"Over the last two decades, Chandra Talpade Mohanty has produced an extraordinary body of writings on transnational feminism, radically changing the way we think about such categories as 'third world women, ' 'women of color' and 'globalization.' This volume combines her now classic essays with new writings that accentuate the centrality of anticapitalist feminist theories and practices to the most expansive and forward-looking version of women's studies today."--Angela Y. Davis

From the Publisher