Transnational Feminism, Globalization, and the Politics of Representation in Chicana Visual Art

Abstract

Recent publications on transnational feminisms emphasize that mainstream academia lacks a focus on transnational movements—that is, the ideas and conditions that cross national borders and affect women’s lives and concerns.¹ For instance, Caren Kaplan argues that until recently there were only two ways of addressing international issues in the women’s studies classroom: “The first method, popular since the 1970s, was to point to the similarities among women around the world and across time periods” (2002, xvii). Focusing on topics such as motherhood and family structure, this method did not recognize the intersections of race/class/gender and nationality in the analysis of women’s experiences. The second approach was ethnocentric, for it viewed Western culture as modern and other cultures as “needing to catch up to the West in Western terms” (xvii). The development approach proved to be important in setting up questions about poverty, education, and health, but it also proved that modernization need not also bring with it the empowerment of women (Bhavnani et al. 2003). From this realization, feminists came to the understanding that the framework for the analysis of women’s lives had to change, once again, to include an international system of states that is profoundly gendered (Kim-Puri 2005, 137). To address this new construct, feminists from all over the globe are using interdisciplinary approaches to consider asymmetries and inequalities that arise from new forms of globalization. Within the United States, feminists of color who had experienced firsthand race and class biases of early women’s movements were the first ones to use these transnational approaches to assess political, economical, and cultural shifts affecting women’s lives.²