SO366 - Global South and Indigenous Feminisms

Presentation

This module centres feminist perspectives on a range of social, cultural and political questions and concerns particularly within post/colonial and settler colony societies. Taking as starting point the postcolonial and indigenous feminist critiques which have challenged the dominance of the liberal and rationalistic Enlightenment episteme, the module will work through questions that have been pertinent to indigenous and post/colonial feminisms such as sovereignty, self-determination, borders, terror, security, socialism, authoritarianism and revolution. Throughout the course we will be attentive to the intersectionality of political struggles and so while we connect our thinking on these topics to specific exemplars each week, students are encouraged to bring their own examples of each theme to class discussions.
The framing of the course is attentive to critical feminist scholarly interventions which have tended to stress the importance of grounding theory in lived experiences and struggles. Global South and Indigenous feminisms have developed out of specific struggles, in the private and public sphere in different locales, times and spaces and in ways that have re-engaged with Marxist, cultural and other critical theoretical ideas, opening them up and centring otherwise marginal experiences and subjectivities. These feminisms have also pursued less conventional epistemologies for studying key social issues that move away from ‘objective social science’ and instead ‘think from the margins’.
Feminisms of the global south and women of colour differ from western feminisms not only because they begin from different identity positions but because they are often forced to confront more extreme brutalities of state and social violence that are endemic to colonial and imperial histories and presents. Through this course we will be engaging with these multiple feminisms; their ideas, critical reflections and interventions both in terms of what feminism, and its variations, mean and how it might be understood in different locales, but also in terms of how it can be used as a tool for rethinking social and political concerns such as sovereignty, citizenship, socialism, authoritarianism, security, terror, religiosity, secularism, land rights, occupation and imprisonment, and revolution.

Key Information

Optional Module

15 CATS

Summative Assessment: 3000 word essay (100%)

Teaching: 1 hour lecture and 1 hour seminar per week

Module Convenor: Nisha Kapoor