Background
Local feminist mobilisation has long been recognised for its pivotal role in empowering women and holding state and non-state actors accountable (from Baldez writing about Chile in 2002 to Tadros writing on Egypt in 2016).
However, in many parts of the global South, feminist organisations and movements have come under assault for being elitist, western, “liberal” and “secular”.
About this research
This project explored how the creation of binaries of “local”, “authentic”, “religious”, and “embedded” versus “feminist”, “elitist”, “secularist”, and “westernised” have influenced understandings of women’s empowerment and the nature of women’s accountability claims.
The initiative contributes to understandings of women’s collective action in contexts where fragmented authority both inside and outside the state limit women’s rights in the name of preserving cultural and religious identity from external threats, particularly the West.
See ‘Challenging Binaries to Promote Women’s Equality’, Feminist Dissent, 3 (2018)
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