Dilemmas of feminist practice in transnational spaces: Solidarity, personal growth, and potential solutions

In this article, we introduce Revisiting Dilemmas in Transnational Feminist Research and Practice, a themed section of Gender, Place and Culture. Composed of four articles and this Introduction, the section builds from a core problem, documented in the literature, that feminist engagements between t...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Rajan, H, Thornhill, K
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: Taylor and Francis 2019
_version_ 1797099202061271040
author Rajan, H
Thornhill, K
author_facet Rajan, H
Thornhill, K
author_sort Rajan, H
collection OXFORD
description In this article, we introduce Revisiting Dilemmas in Transnational Feminist Research and Practice, a themed section of Gender, Place and Culture. Composed of four articles and this Introduction, the section builds from a core problem, documented in the literature, that feminist engagements between the global ‘South’ and ‘North’ can lead Northerners or outsiders to inadvertently essentialise the ‘culture’ of underprivileged groups and hold to paternalistic attitudes towards marginalised communities, even while attempting to confront and mitigate inequalities. While privilege can be an obstacle to solidarity work, how might solidarity be ethically and respectfully built, across chasms of race, class, nation, and other forms of difference? This themed section focuses primarily on this question, through evidence and researcher reflections from settings as disparate as southern Africa, Nigeria, Jordan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Canada. The articles also describe the uncomfortable circumstances encountered by researchers who occupy both an insider and outsider position in the communities they work with, but move beyond this description to discuss how this type of positionality can produce valuable insights. In this Introduction, we summarise and describe the four articles contained in the themed section, pointing to the ways in which the authors help to enhance our understanding of the problems inherent in transnational feminist work and potential solutions.
first_indexed 2024-03-07T05:20:21Z
format Journal article
id oxford-uuid:deaac11e-b2a3-4014-a971-76b3074cf0bd
institution University of Oxford
language English
last_indexed 2024-03-07T05:20:21Z
publishDate 2019
publisher Taylor and Francis
record_format dspace
spelling oxford-uuid:deaac11e-b2a3-4014-a971-76b3074cf0bd2022-03-27T09:33:54ZDilemmas of feminist practice in transnational spaces: Solidarity, personal growth, and potential solutionsJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:deaac11e-b2a3-4014-a971-76b3074cf0bdEnglishSymplectic Elements at OxfordTaylor and Francis2019Rajan, HThornhill, KIn this article, we introduce Revisiting Dilemmas in Transnational Feminist Research and Practice, a themed section of Gender, Place and Culture. Composed of four articles and this Introduction, the section builds from a core problem, documented in the literature, that feminist engagements between the global ‘South’ and ‘North’ can lead Northerners or outsiders to inadvertently essentialise the ‘culture’ of underprivileged groups and hold to paternalistic attitudes towards marginalised communities, even while attempting to confront and mitigate inequalities. While privilege can be an obstacle to solidarity work, how might solidarity be ethically and respectfully built, across chasms of race, class, nation, and other forms of difference? This themed section focuses primarily on this question, through evidence and researcher reflections from settings as disparate as southern Africa, Nigeria, Jordan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Canada. The articles also describe the uncomfortable circumstances encountered by researchers who occupy both an insider and outsider position in the communities they work with, but move beyond this description to discuss how this type of positionality can produce valuable insights. In this Introduction, we summarise and describe the four articles contained in the themed section, pointing to the ways in which the authors help to enhance our understanding of the problems inherent in transnational feminist work and potential solutions.
spellingShingle Rajan, H
Thornhill, K
Dilemmas of feminist practice in transnational spaces: Solidarity, personal growth, and potential solutions
title Dilemmas of feminist practice in transnational spaces: Solidarity, personal growth, and potential solutions
title_full Dilemmas of feminist practice in transnational spaces: Solidarity, personal growth, and potential solutions
title_fullStr Dilemmas of feminist practice in transnational spaces: Solidarity, personal growth, and potential solutions
title_full_unstemmed Dilemmas of feminist practice in transnational spaces: Solidarity, personal growth, and potential solutions
title_short Dilemmas of feminist practice in transnational spaces: Solidarity, personal growth, and potential solutions
title_sort dilemmas of feminist practice in transnational spaces solidarity personal growth and potential solutions
work_keys_str_mv AT rajanh dilemmasoffeministpracticeintransnationalspacessolidaritypersonalgrowthandpotentialsolutions
AT thornhillk dilemmasoffeministpracticeintransnationalspacessolidaritypersonalgrowthandpotentialsolutions