Local and Global Feminisms and the Politics of Knowledge

Jenny Norton Research Cluster - During the upcoming academic year, the research cluster will continue to focus on theories of intersectionality and feminist knowledge within a global and transnational framework as well as those that acknowledge the continuing importance of the nation-state in the construction of identities, desires, and culture.  In this way, we intend to rigorously theorize the politics of knowledge that we research and teach beyond a primarily US-centered analysis of the relationships of women and communities of color to the nation-state but see these phenomenon as also constructing of and at times constructed by an increasingly globalizing and transnationalizing world.  Feminist intersectionality is important and useful in exploring the tensions of the US and other nation-states maintaining ideological borders in the face of transnational economies and other processes; these tensions further require the development of a set of feminist theoretical tools that emerge from the global realities of our contemporary societies and our university itself.  Questions that we will continue to ask and address in our works include: What are the possibilities and limits of intersectionality’s utility within a global context?  How do feminists engage notions of citizenship, the nation, nationalism, postcoloniality, globalization, transnationalism, and thus theorize specifically situated men and women’s relationships to postcolonial landscapes, neoliberal, and newly colonized geographies? How can we theorize the relationship between First World and Third/Second World women within this notion? Also, what does it mean for indigenous peoples globally who are both racially categorized and politically organized as neither fully sovereign nations nor fully citizens within the nation state? How do we explain the contradictions of democratic governance and the unfulfilled promises of citizenship within a global economy and increasing globalized culture? What theories can provide a path for coalition building across real differences and national borders?

This Research Cluster is sponsored by the Norton Fund. The Reverend Jenny Norton has provided funding to support an annual Research Cluster at the IHR. The Norton fund is designed to stimulate research on women in any field and on any topic. The Jenny Norton Research Cluster receives an award up to $1,750 to support their activities and may include partial or full support for a visiting scholar.