Project lead
Lena Joos, M.A.
Discipline
History
Project title
Feminist Futures: A Political History of Ideas and Practices of the Future in Transnational Women’s and Feminist Movements, 1970-2000
Abstract
Women’s and feminist movements have not only always been transnational but have emerged with the intention of radically transforming society. Women's movements and feminist actors of the 20th century had explicit or implicit ideas of what the future should or should not look like. In the form of utopian as well as dystopian visions, hopes, and aspirations, they criticized and politicized different forms of oppression; and, consequently, inspired and incited political and social change. The formulation of visions of the future by feminists and women thus represents social and political acts that, when studied as historical phenomena, enable more profound insights into the lives of political subjects and social movements in general. The dissertation project aims to examine the notions of the future(s) of transnational women and feminist actors by looking not only at their imaginations of the future but also at the contested making of these notions and the power relations connected to them. Therefore, the research questions are two-fold. The first focus is on the content: How did transnational feminist actors imagine the future? The second focus lies on the contested makings of the future(s): How were visions of the future articulated and created? To what negotiation processes, power relations, conflicts, and practices were they tied? By following these questions, the project provides insights into the multi-layered, complex, contradictory, and historical nature of categories, actors, and processes of the 20th century.
The project takes a feminist, global, and decolonial perspective. It aims to counteract the conceptualization of previous research that often concentrates on the one hand, on a national framework of investigation, and, on the other hand, on Western European as well as US-American actors. By limiting the framework of investigation in this manner, previous studies neglected to examine women’s organizations and activists from socialist, Eastern European countries as well as from postcolonial or non-aligned countries. Consequently, this project explores notions of the future of transnational networked women by looking at actors from different regions and socio-economic contexts that met at different international women's conferences between 1975 and 1995. By asking, “Where did the aspirations meet?” the inquiry starts at the World Congress of Women in East Berlin (1975), as well as the NGO Forums of the UN World Conferences on Women in Mexico City (1975), in Copenhagen (1980), and Nairobi (1985). On this basis, the analysis follows selected in their local and transnational contexts. Specifically, I examine transnationally networked local movements such as the Philippines women’s movement, international organizations such as the Women's International Democratic Federation (WIDF), or transnational networks such as Development Alternatives for Women within A New Era (DAWN). However, the project doesn’t adopt an uncritical global narrative but instead considers historical inequalities, power relations, and local contexts. Overall, this project contributes to the history of a multiplicity of women’s and feminist struggles and strives for a critical global, decolonial, and feminist history of the future(s).
To answer the research questions, I use archival sources, self-testimonies, published sources, photographs, audio-visual material, and oral history interviews. As I have visited nine archival institutions and considered over thirty archival collections, the source base is a large conglomeration of sources from personal archives, organizational archives, conference documents, newspaper articles, videos of conferences, or audiotapes of discussions. Overall, the aim of the material base is not completeness or representativeness but diversity and richness in perspective.
The project's findings so far show that international conferences have been essential spaces for women in movement to share different experiences, work on a common agenda, and develop visions and strategies for the future. In addition to intensive debates and heated conflicts, the joint discussions and networking also contributed to hope and positive expectations. This shows the future-creating effect of such international conferences, where people actively thought about the future and from which actors drew strength, motivation, and hope. The visions of the actors studied were rooted in local experiences and movements but global in their aspirations. Overall, the making of the future(s) has been shaped by power hierarchies such as racism, (neo)-colonialism, and neoliberal capitalism. However, women from the so-called “Third World,” in particular, challenged the predominantly white middle-class feminism from the global North and expanded the feminist agenda to include issues of national liberation, racism, militarism, class, and poverty. The case of the Philippine women’s movements shows how transnational networked actors reappropriated the meaning of feminism into their contexts by connecting it to local and national issues such as national struggle. Further, by creating shared future visions of liberation, the Philippine women’s movements built transnational networks of solidarity that shaped their activism financially, politically, and ideologically. Overall, the visions of the women in movement were not only ideas – of peace, women’s emancipation, and (bodily) self-determination – but also practices: of resistance, networking, and solidarity.
Supervision
Prof. Dr. Christian Gerlach (Universität Bern)
Contact
lena.joos@unibe.ch
