The 2009-2010 seminar series was held in association with the Birkbeck Institute for Gender and Sexuality: Postcolonial approaches to feminism
Over the last 3 decades, post-colonial studies have had a profound impact upon the study and practice of feminism. Historians have had increasingly to look to a multiplicity of ‘feminisms’ that emerged globally in the last two centuries. Meanwhile, study of what was traditionally labelled ‘first wave feminism’ (Anglo-American women’s movements of the nineteenth-century) has been transformed through the recognition of the extent to which western women’s claims for emancipation were bound up with imperialist and oppressive conceptions of citizenship. Postcolonial critiques have also been one of the most important factors in challenging and re-shaping feminist activism since at least 1980, with many assumptions about our ability to call for ‘universal’ liberation and to support women’s rights across the globe having been overturned.
This seminar series sought to take account of these developments, and to ask where they leave us today – for both the theory and practice of feminism. We re-visited classic texts of postcolonial histories of feminism, and heard from new scholars working in this field. We asked to what extent post-colonialism had succeeded in re-formulating historians’ periodisation and definitions of ‘feminism’. We also wanted to re-visit key feminist concepts such as ‘agency’, ‘difference’, ‘representation’ and ‘citizenship’ and to ask, in the light of post-colonial critiques, whether they continue to be of use to us as both historical concepts and political tools. Can a post-colonial analysis of inequities of power between women become the beginning rather than the end of a conversation about the possibility of transnational feminism and the building of solidarity across borders?
The seminars were designed to be for both academics and activists, as a space that encouraged us to both approach ‘academic’ research in a politicised frame and to theoretically ground our ‘political’ activism. We read both historical and theoretical texts, and although our discussions sought to take a historical view of the questions we address, we also welcomed feminist scholars from a variety of disciplines.
The Programme
The seminars took the form of a reading group. Participants read the texts in advance and came along ready to discuss them.
16th Oct. Anne McClintock, Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Imperial Context (Introduction and chapter 1).
13th Nov. Antoinette Burton, Burdens of History: British Feminists, Indian Women, and Imperial Culture, 1865-1915 & Sara Ahmed, ‘A Phenomenology of Whiteness’, Feminist Theory, 8 (2) (2007), 149-68; Sara Ahmed, Queer Phenomenology: orientations, objects, others (Durham, 2006).
18th Dec. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’, in Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg, Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998), pp. 271-313.
22nd Jan – Seminar Paper: ‘Motherhood and Other Work in Indian and
“Western” Feminist Theory’ Dr Elizabeth Jackson (Birkbeck). Please
email the seminar conveners in advance for a copy of the paper.
19th Feb – Reading group: ‘Gay Imperialism: Gender and Sexuality
Discourse in the “War on Terror”‘ by Jin Haritaworn, Tamsila Tauqir
and Esra Erdem, in Out of Place: Interrogating Silences in
Queerness/Raciality (2008) edited by Adi Kunstman & Esperanza Miyake
(Raw Nerve, 2008 – now withdrawn). Available as a pdf on
www.xtalkproject.net, to be read alongside the online debate ‘On the
Censorship of Gay Imperialism’.
26th March – Seminar Paper: ‘Contesting Femininity: Sexual Violence
during “Gujarat 2002″‘ Dr Megha Kumar (Past and Present Fellow, IHR).
Please email the seminar conveners in advance for a copy of the paper.
Where can I find a list of past papers?
For papers presented/discussed in 2008-2009, please click here.
For papers presented/discussed in 2007-2008, please click here.
For papers presented/discussed in 2006-2007, please click here.
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