Constructing Solidarity Across Difference in Feminist Encounters

Authors

  • Johanna Leinius University of Kassel

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17169/ogj.2020.72

Keywords:

Solidarity, Postcolonial Theory, Feminism, Social Movements, Peru

Abstract

In this article, I discuss how solidarity across difference can be fostered in meetings between social movements. Based on the writings of postcolonial feminists and an analysis of two social-movement encounters that took place in Peru, I develop three aspects of solidarity across difference: the recognition of the intersectionality of struggles, the acknowledgment of “unmapped common ground” as a shared basis for working together, and imagination as a mode for bridging the gap between oneself and the Other. I illustrate my argument with examples from the 5th Diálogos – a meeting between urban feminist, women’s, and anti-mining movements, scholar activists and artists – and the 13th Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Encuentro to show how the discursive construction of difference interwove with organizational decisions and the hegemonic ordering of difference to open or constrict the spaces in which solidarity across difference could be developed.

Author Biography

Johanna Leinius, University of Kassel

Johanna Leinius is a post-doctoral researcher in the program "Ecologies of Social Cohesion", University of Kassel. Previously she worked as research assistant at the Frankfurt Research Center for Postcolonial Studies (FRCPS) at the Cluster of Excellence "The Formation of Normative Orders", Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. She is spokesperson of the Section for Politics and Gender of the German Association for Political Science and of the working group 'Poststructuralist Perspectives on Social Movements' of the Institute for Social Movement Studies (ipb). Her research interests are postcolonial feminist theory, social movements, political ontology and socio-ecological transformation.

References

 13 EFLAC (2014a): Declaración LGBTI XIII EFLAC. Lima: 13 EFLAC.

 13 EFLAC (2014b): Manifiesto Político. Por la Liberación de Nuestros Cuerpos. Lima: 13 Encuentro Feminista de América Latina y el Caribe.

 13 EFLAC (2014c): Sistematización del 13 Encuentro Feminista Latinoamericano y del Caribe. Por la Liberación de Nuestros Cuerpos. Unpublished Report. Lima: Movimiento Manuela Ramos y Grupo Impulsor Nacional 13eflac.

Alvarez, Sonia E. (2000): Translating the Global. Effects of Transnational Organizing on Local Feminist Discourses and Practices in Latin America. In: Cadernos de Pesquisa 22 1–27.

Anzaldúa, Gloria (1987): Borderlands/La Frontera. The New Mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute.

Anzaldúa, Gloria E. (2002): now let us shift . . . the path of conocimiento . . . inner work, public acts. In: Anzaldúa, Gloria E./Keating, Analouise (Ed.): this bridge we call home. Radical visions for transformation. New York: Routledge, 540–578.

Anzaldúa, Gloria E. (2009): (Un)natural Bridges, (Un)safe Spaces. In: Keating, Analouise (Ed.): The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 243–248. doi: 10.1215/9780822391272-035.

Aparicio, Juan Ricardo/Blaser, Mario (2008): The “Lettered City” and the Insurrection of Subjugated Knowledges in Latin America. In: Anthropological Quarterly 81 (1), 59–94. doi: 10.1353/anq.2008.0000.

Birla, Rita (2010): Postcolonial Studies. Now That’s History. In: Morris, Rosalind C. (Ed.): Can the Subaltern Speak? Reflections on the History of an Idea. New York: Columbia University Press, 87–99.

Carty, Linda E./Mohanty, Chandra Talpade (2015): Mapping Transnational Feminist Engagements. Neoliberalism and the Politics of Solidarity. In: Baksh, Rawwida/Harcourt, Wendy (Ed.): The Oxford Handbook of Transnational Feminist Movements. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 82–116. doi: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199943494.013.010.

Clarke, Adele (2005): Situational Analysis. Grounded Theory after the Postmodern Turn. London and New Delhi: Sage Publications. Clarke, Adele/Friese, Carrie/Washburn, Rachel (Ed.) (2015): Situational Analysis in Practice. Mapping Research With Grounded Theory. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press. doi: 10.4324/9781315420134.

Daza, Mar/Hoetmer, Raphael/Foroni, Nicola/Vargas, Virginia/Contreras, Luna (2016): Diálogos de Saberes y Movimientos en el Perú. Apuntes Sobre Una Experiencia Parecida al Tejer. In: Hegoa/Joxemi Zumalabe/Gipuzkoako Foru Aldundia (Ed.): Experiencias de Formación Política en los Movimientos Sociales. Bilbao: HEGOA – Universidad del Páis Vasco, 69–128.

Diaz-Bone, Rainer (2006): Zur Methodologisierung der Foucaultschen Diskursanalyse. In: Historical Social Research 31 (2), 243–274.

Dinerstein, Ana Cecilia (2015): The Politics of Autonomy in Latin America. The Art of Organising Hope. Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan. doi: 10.1057/9781137316011.

Eschle, Catherine (2004): Constructing ‘the Anti-Globalisation Movement’. In: International Journal of Peace Studies 9 (1), 62–84.

Grewal, Inderpal/Kaplan, Caren (Ed.) (1994): Scattered Hegemonies. Postmodernity and Transnational Feminist Practices. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.

Greene, Shane (2006): Getting Over the Andes: The Geo-Eco-Politics of Indigenous Movements in Peru’s Twenty-First Century Inca Empire. In: Journal of Latin American Studies 38 (2), 327–254. doi: 10.1017/S0022216X06000733.

Issa, Daniela (2007): Praxis of Empowerment. Mística and Mobilization in Brazil’s Landless Rural Workers’ Movement. In: Latin American Perspectives 34 (2), 124–138. doi: 10.1177/0094582X06298745.

Keating, AnaLouise (2005): Shifting Perspectives. Spiritual Activism, Social Transformation, and the Politics of Spirit. In: Keating, Analouise (Ed.): EntreMundos/AmongWorlds. New Perspectives on Gloria E. Anzaldúa. Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 241–254. doi: 10.1057/9781403977137_24.

Laclau, Ernesto/Mouffe, Chantal (1985): Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. London: Verso. Las Amazonas por Amazonas. (2017): Las Amazonas por Amazonas. https://www.facebook.com/lasamazonas.poramazonas?lst=813013631%3A 100007953582209%3A1489682357 (15/03/2017).

Leinius, Johanna (2020): Die Translokalisierung lateinamerikanischer Feminismen im Spiegel transnationaler Begegnungen. In: Feministische Studien 38 (1), 57–74. doi: 10.1515/fs-2020-0004.

Leinius, Johanna (forthcoming): The Postcolonial Feminist Ethics and Politics of Research Collaborations across North-South-Divides. In: Ziai, Aram/ Müller, Franziska/Bendix, Daniel (Ed.): Beyond the Master’s Tools. Decolonizing Knowledge Orders, Research Methodology, and Teaching. London: Palgrave. doi: 10.1515/fjsb-2017-0081.

Leinius, Johanna/Vey, Judith/Hagemann, Ingmar (2017): Poststrukturalistische Perspektiven auf soziale Bewegungen. Plädoyer für eine notwendige Blickverschiebung. In: Forschungsjournal Soziale Bewegungen 30 (4), 6–20.

Lorde, Audre (1982): Zami. A New Spelling of My Name. New York: Perspephone Press.

Lorde, Audre (1984): Sister Outsider. Essays and Speeches. Freedom: Crossing Press.

Marttila, Tomas (2015): Post-Foundational Discourse Analysis. A Suggestion for a Research Program. In: FQS. Forum Qualitative Social Research 16 (3).

Mohanty, Chandra Talpade (2003): Feminism Without Borders. Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. Durham: Duke University Press. doi: 10.1215/9780822384649.

Morgan, Robin (1984): Sisterhood is Global. The International Women’s Movement Anthology. New York: The Feminist Press at CUNY.

PDTG (2010): Entre la Crisis y Otros Mundos Posibles. Memoria del I Taller de Diálogos de Movimientos y Saberes. Lima: PDTG.

PDTG (2014): Memoria V Diálogos de Saberes y Movimientos. Lima: PDTG.

Rama, Angel (1996): The Lettered City. Durham: Duke University Press.

Risler, Julia/Ares, Pablo (2014): Talleres de mapeo. Recursos lúdicos y visuales para la construcción de conocimiento colectivo. In: Ecología Política 76–82.

Roshanravan, Shireen (2014): Motivating Coalition. Women of Color and Epistemic Disobedience. In: Hypatia 29 (1), 41–58. doi: 10.1111/hypa.12057.

Safa, Helen I. (2005): Challenging Mestizaje: A Gender Perspective on Indigenous and Afrodescendant Movements in Latin America. Critique of Anthropology 25 (3), 307–330. doi: 10.1177/0308275X05055217.

Sandoval, Chela (2000): Methodology of the Oppressed. Minneapolis and London: Minneapolis University Press.

Schutte, Ofelia (2011): Resistance to Colonialism. The Latin American Legacy of José Martí. In: Levy, Jacob T./Young, Iris Marion (Ed.): Colonialism and Its Legacies. Plymouth: Lexington Books, 181–204.

Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty (2000): A Moral Dilemma. In: Theoria. A Journal of Social and Political Theory (96), 99–120. doi: 10.3167/004058100782485675.

Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty (2004): Righting Wrongs. In: South Atlantic Quarterly 103 (2–3), 523–581. doi: 10.1215/00382876-103-2-3-523.

Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty (2009): They the People. Problems of Alter-Globalization. In: Radical Philosophy 157 (Sep/Oct), 31–36.

Taylor, Verta/Whittier, Nancy (1992): Collective Identity in Social Movement Communities. Lesbian Feminist Mobilization. In: Morris, Aldon D./Mueller Mcclurg, Carol (Ed.): Frontiers in Social Movement Theory. New Haven: Yale University Press, 104–129. UPMS. (2016): What is UPMS. http://www.universidadepopular.org/site/pages/en/about-upms/what-is-upms.php (04/09/2016).

Vargas, Virginia (2003): Feminism, Globalization and the Global Justice and Solidarity Movement. In: Cultural Studies 17 (6), 905–920. doi: 10.1080/0950238032000150093.

Waller, Marguerite/Marcos, Sylvia (2005): Dialogue and Difference. Feminisms Challenge Globalization. New York and Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan. doi: 10.1007/978-1-137-07883-4.

Plakat der European Feminist Research Conference 2018: Motiv Zerknitterte Oberfläche in Rosa- und Grautönen

Downloads

Published

2020-05-28

How to Cite

Leinius, J. (2020). Constructing Solidarity Across Difference in Feminist Encounters. Open Gender Journal, 4. https://doi.org/10.17169/ogj.2020.72

Issue

Section

10th European Feminist Research Conference in Göttingen (2018)

Categories

Similar Articles

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 > >> 

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.