Cultural Geography

partial and local knowledges, constrained by

their boundaries and the limited nature of view-

point. Strategies to dislocate western-centric

approaches perceive all knowledge as con-

testable, in contrast to the hands-off ‘respect’ of

cultural relativists. Certain issues will unite

women cross-culturally (for example, sexist

oppression); other struggles, such as those for

racial justice or national liberation, might mean

confrontation between women. Stereotypes and

generalizations need to be problematized. For

example, as Narayan argues,

there is no need to portray female genital mutilation as

an ‘African cultural practice’ or dowry murders and

dowry related harassment as a ‘problem of Indian

women’ in ways that eclipse the fact that not all

‘African women’ or ‘Indian women’ confront these

problems, or confront them in identical ways, or in

ways that efface local contestations of these problems.

(1998: 104)

The challenge is to produce something construc-

tive out of disagreement, and to combine mater-

ial concerns and emphasis on local knowledges

with postcolonial and poststructuralist disman-

tling of knowledge claims. Ferguson (1998: 95)

theorizes this as a new ‘ethico-politics’. She

suggests that the problem that western feminists

need to confront is that they are located in the

very global power relations that they might

aspire to change; hence there is a ‘danger of col-

luding with knowledge production that valorises

status quo economic, gender, racial and cultural

inequalities’. There is a need for self-reflexivity,

recognition of the negative aspects of one’s

social identity and devaluation of one’s moral

superiority to build ‘bridge identities’ across dif-

ference. This allows other knowledges to talk

back, and creates a ‘solidarity between women

that must be struggled for rather than automati-

cally received’ (1998: 109). This does not mean

generalizations cannot be made, but it puts the

emphasis back on how they are made. As Schech

and Haggis (2000: 113) argue, these postcolonial

feminist approaches are not simply about decon-

structing western feminisms. Rather they provide

a more comprehensive project of remoulding a

conceptual framework ‘capable of embracing a

global politics of social justice in ways which

avoid the “colonizing move”’.

THEORY INTO PRACTICE AT

THE INTERNATIONAL SCALE?

There are now many instances of women around

the world forging bonds of solidarity across

difference at a variety of different scales.

However, global power relations still pose prob-

lems for international feminism at the global

scale. The UN conferences on women are a clear

example where the theoretical developments out-

lined above often fail to translate into feminist

practice. As discussed, the Mexico City (1975)

and Copenhagen (1980) UN conferences were

significant in highlighting differences between

women. Better communications were established

at the 1985 Nairobi conference once the myth of

global sisterhood was abandoned and the pro-

found differences in women’s lives and the

meanings of feminism across cultures were

acknowledged (Basu, 1995: 3). Recognition of

these differences is a product of insights gained

from changes in the global order, changes in the

forms of women’s activism and the complicated,

often conflictual, interchanges between local and

global feminisms.

Diversity is now at the core of international

feminism. As Karam (2000: 176) argues, this is

not just about going beyond a singular identity

for feminism, but about levels of identification

and different feminist convictions and ideas

among different generations of women with the

bodies of feminist knowledge that have emerged

recently. The need to identify different femi-

nisms is now an acceptable theoretical premise;

the diversity of feminist strategies means that

there are also different priorities. However, as

Amadiume (2000: 10) argues, familiar problems

resurfaced at the fourth UN Conference on

women, in Beijing, 1995. She argues that the

‘Platform for Action’ document produced at this

conference was a unique achievement in pressing

policy-makers to take action on women’s issues

and forcing governments seriously to address

these issues. They include poverty, global econo-

mics, women’s human rights, armed conflict,

violence against women, political and economic

participation, power-sharing, institutional mecha-

nisms, media, access to healthcare and education,

environment and protection of girl children.

However, Amadiume argues that this is a ‘laundry-

list approach to women’s issues’, encouraging

European women to return from Beijing with an illusion

of a truly global process and a harmonious global

sisterhood, with all women saying the same thing in

spite of diversity. I even heard a few bourgeois women

saying that women’s differences have finally been

resolved and that women are now the same everywhere.

(2000: 12–13)

She suggests that well-meaning as these global

concerns are, they should continue to be assessed

in the context of western economic, political and

cultural imperialism.

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