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Facing Global Capital,
Finding Human Security: A Gendered Critique
Human
Security:
Definitions and Scope
Facilitator:
Invited Guest: Viviene Taylor, Deputy Executive Director,
Commission on Human Security
In
addressing definitions of
human security,
During the
ensuing
discussion, one participant noted that the concept of human security
could be
seen as a discursive strategy, and as such a number of questions needed
to be
addressed: What are the costs and benefits of human security? Is it a male-defined concept?
Are the campaigns for human security truly
focused on people’s well-being? What is the relationship between human
security
and military security? What is the
discursive overlap between the two concepts, and whose interests are
actually
served even when human security is invoked as an objective?
Other
participants stated
that the definition of human security was not yet clear to them and
that the concept
of “well-being” as the core of human security was too broad for
meaningful
interrogation or activism. Preference
for examining human security as “personal” everyday security and not
strictly
in relation to conflict was also expressed. The concern with human
insecurity,
particularly on the part of the UN, developed not just in response to
the Cold
War, but to the variety of crises impacting people globally – including
natural
disasters, the trafficking of women, children, and guns, the spread of
AIDS. Others noted that a critical element
in
defining security is determining sites of accountability, which would
enable
discussions around how to focus policy and activism.
In looking
at potential
sites of accountability, much discussion about the State ensued, and
several
participants noted key questions regarding the specific role of the
State in
relation to human security.
Does the
State have a role
as a buffer between global capital and the Nation? There was a call to
make
distinctions among States, pointing out that nation-states and the
roles they
play differ. For example, so-called “failed states,” marginalized by
the
international community, operate with a different governmental
infrastructure.
An example cited was
The
history of “nation” and
“state” stems from the 18th century; within masculine
nationalist
ideology, the State serves as an instrument for wielding power and
influence,
but often at the expense of others, whoever the particular state’s
others are.
The existence of a State implies certain rights of citizenship, but
access to
rights are not necessarily automatic, and subtle institutionalized and
hierarchical differences pertain because of factors such as ethnicity,
race,
sexuality, class and gender. At the same time, notions of statehood
have often
been used to elide such differences and social forces.
Moreover, such systems of exclusion and
discrimination have often constituted the success of the State.
It was
noted that nation and
state are not interchangeable, and a disconnect between them has long
been
noted by political analysts. Globalization,
though, highlights the discrepancy between
nation and
state and calls attention to the breakdown of the nation-state,
particularly by
illuminating those individuals – including women – who are not
represented
by/in it. The sovereign male subject has
traditionally, if implicitly, been projected onto the state. On this point, one participant argued that
the historical gendering of the state as male does not mean that issues
around
the state, specifically state security, should be branded and left an
issue “for the boys.” A feminist critique of “security” must take state security into consideration. It is also
worth noting
how
In
commenting on the
readings for the seminar, several mentioned that the reading by Wilkin
and
Thomas had been the most useful in laying out the multifaceted nature
of human
security and in locating it in relation to theories of the nation-state
in
particular.
Invited
guest, Viviene
Taylor from the Secretariat for the Global Commission on Human
Security and
also a member of DAWN, gave some background information on the current
thinking
about human security among governments and the UN.
She reiterated that the term human security
comes with a history, and informed the group that the Global Commission
on
Human Security, set up in 2001, was actively discussing issues and
definitions
as well as uses of the concept of human security. She noted that usage
and
definition depended a great deal on background and orientation. She
encouraged
the Seminar to come up with a more nuanced understanding of human
security
taking into account that it may well be a relative notion that is
time-bound
and dependent on the site of invocation and application.
The
Commission is also
examining the concept of a “vital core” of human security – a cluster
of key
components that are central to the protection of human security. The Commission, then, was asking a number of
key questions, including: Who decides what constitutes the “vital core” of
security needs? Who is responsible for
protecting such needs, whether in peacetime, in the face of chronic
unrest and
instability, or in times of catastrophic crises around war and natural
disasters? In these contexts, what is
the role of the State, civil society, and the private sector? What is it that makes people feel secure? Are
there degrees of insecurity that must be addressed? Does increased
militarization actually jeopardize and undermine people’s sense of
security? What is the link between
economic, political, and social forces and manifestations of violence
and what
general framework for interventions can respond to the different
arrangements
of these forces locally and globally?
Generally,
security is a
loaded term that is culturally specific. For example, one participant
suggested
that security was being used in the
One
participant asked if
State security hindered or helped Human security. To what extent is
rule of law
related to security. How is human security linked to economic security,
to
global capital, to freedom? The worry
was expressed that security is generally defined in relation to
territory and
that it was important to interrogate the concept from a
deterritorialized
perspective taking into account migrants, trafficked persons, refugees
and
dislocated persons.
It is
important to
deconstruct “security” and interrogate the contradictions and tensions
surrounding the term. In addition, if we are to speak of “human
security,” we
must ask on what notions of “humanity” is this term founded – How are
we
limited in imagining the “human”? The “human” in official discourses generally refers to a Cartesian (“I
think,
therefore I am”), neo-liberal subject, and it is worth noting that
there is now
a long history of critique of what persons have been excluded from this
notion
of “humanity.” Also, how are this notion
of the human and presumptions about the boundaries of the human body
undermined
by current technologies and markets, such as the development of
chemical
weapons and the trade in human organs?
One
participant raised the
question of how bringing “gender” into the security discussion was
different
from or similar to bringing “gender” into the discussion of human
rights. It was then noted that human
rights discourse
and the concept of “norms” have to be integral to any discussion of
human
security and must reflect equally women’s human rights. Some worried
that there
may be a shift from rights to security and that this had to be viewed
very critically,
especially from the point of view of gender and feminism.
There was some suspicion about the political
usefulness of supplanting “rights” discourse with “security” discourse. It was also noted that the debates centering
around economic, cultural and social rights by the international
community were
likely to be highly relevant to any discussion of economic, social and
cultural
security.
It was
also noted that there
had already been an effort to develop indicators of human security.
Here the
availability of data and statistics became critical and as in many
other
domains, the lack of gender-disaggregated data was likely to be a
limiting
factor.
A key
issue underlying the
discussion was power, and it was stressed that to mobilize the concept
of human
security with the goal of gender justice, it was necessary to take on
issues of
power. Power – in its abstract reckoning
and material configurations – is critical to addressing these issues,
and
central to determining who gets to define human security and how they
define
it. These issues are increasingly
complicated by the ostensible decentering of power and dilapidation of
the
nation-state often presumed part and parcel of accelerated capital and
technological growth on a global level. In
examining discourses of globalization, then, we must
also take into
account questions of power.
The next
topic for
discussion will be: “Discourses of Globalization: From Empire to
Empire,”
From Empire to Empire:
Discourses of Globalization
Facilitator:
The
facilitator,
The
facilitator briefly
reviewed some of the points raised during the previous meeting of the
Seminar
(9.26, “Human Security: Definitions and Scope”). In
looking at discourses of human security,
we must consider who or what institution is speaking and for whose
benefit. Also, rather than looking at
human security as strictly opposed to military and/or national
security, we
must consider how the discourses intersect and are always related. Also, what concept(s) of “humanity” or “the
human” is(are) implied by or embedded in notions of human security? What is the relationship between human
security and human rights? Is the move
toward human security an effort to override the contested domain of
human
rights? What is the role of the
nation-state
in ensuring human security? Also, how do
we bring a deterritorialized perspective to our analysis, particularly
as we
seek to identify sites of accountability?
The
facilitator highlighted
key points and questions taken up in the reading for the session: How
does
globalization affect women in particular? How
does one oppose the forces of globalization? Basch
looked specifically at reflections in
the reading on globalization as they pertained to the discourse on
human
security. She introduced the concept of accountability in relation to
globalization and challenged participants to consider this in relation
to human
security.
Caroline
Thomas situates
human security around basic needs and emancipation from oppressive
power
structures. In particular, Thomas points
out that within globalization, the latest stage of capitalism, priority
is
according to Western “rational” thought at the expense of local
knowledges. At the same time, it’s
important to think about the “third world in the first world.” Sassen and Summerfield examine the impact of
structural adjustment policies on the global South with Summerfield
addressing
risks and crises that affect women and children as a result of the
heightened
complexity of the global economy and the coupling of economies, and
Sassen
looking at the counter geographies of globalization and its unintended
outcomes, such as the accumulation of capital on the “backs of the
truly
disadvantaged” and the “feminization of survival.” Tickner explicitly
looks at
human security in relation to social and political processes and
women’s
resistance to different forces of globalization through their
development of
knowledge at the margins.
Escobar
deconstructs
discourses of development – or “regimes of representation” – using a
Foucauldian framework, and thereby outlines “this history of the loss
of an
illusion.” He considers the problematization of poverty and its impact
on
people, and argues that the deconstruction of development must be acted
out
simultaneously with reconstruction. Finally Hardt and Negri posit that
sovereignty has taken a new form – empire, the latest manifestation of
globalization. Empire is characterized
by the deterritorialization and decentralization of power, the fall of
the
nation-state, and the suspension of history.
The
ensuing discussion
related the readings for the session to women’s advocacy around
globalization
and development both in terms of successes and frustrations and began
to make
links between neo-liberalism and people’s security.
One participant identified an absence in the
readings, particularly Escobar. It was
noted that, though typically not well-known and unrecognized in
Euro-American
literature, the international women’s movement has been articulating
critiques
of development since the 1970s. Escobar
picks up on many strands on this critique in his own deconstruction of
development discourses.
New models
of accountability
at all levels were now needed as a function of globalization. One participant observed that neo-liberal
globalization
and fundamentalism had squeezed women’s human rights, thus increasing
the case
for linking human rights and human security. It
was noted that the UN had lost power although it still
represented an
ideal of global governance. In the wake of this sense of having been
failed –
by the UN for example – women activists are assessing the current
global
situation and “building analysis from below.” The
emergence of meetings like the World Social Forum were
cited as
indicative of the search by civil society for new ways to make
citizens’ views
known and to provide opportunities for networking and strategizing. In addition, the World Bank and the IMF were
cited as institutional seats of power with which feminist activists
must
engage. It was noted that women too are
searching for new ways of being heard and that new social movements
frequently
fail to incorporate a gender perspective. It was noted that the women’s
movement is not seen by all as a social movement, but as an
identity-based
movement, and as such it is often not represented in political
discourses about
social change addressing such issues as the eradication of poverty and
the ills
of globalization. There are often tokenistic moves to include women “at
the
table,” but their voices are not prominent. One
of the implications of this discussion for human
security is the
importance of voice in human security.
As in the
discussion of
September 26, questions of power are critical here, particularly with
respect
to the presumed authenticity of others’ voices. The
global project of poverty management produces a right
to
intervention in the so-called third world. Intervention,
though, involves the selection of particular
subaltern
voices that are coded as representative and authentic.
These voices are promptly coopted,
institutionalized and invested with a certain power because presumed to
give
insight into “other” realities. In this
process, a severe power differential is constantly at play, and other
voices –
though seemingly extolled – are silenced.
At the
same time, leftist
academic analyses of power and identity-based movements generally focus
on the
most marginalized, or the “powerless” (whether women, people of color,
etc.). In looking at issues around
globalization,
we look at those who have suffered under the strain and spread of
global
capital, instead of looking closely at who and what institutions are
privileged
and defined by globalization. Moreover,
analysts and policymakers alike need to practice self-reflection and
pay
special attention to their own positions – often privileged,
professional
positions – in order to understand heir vantage point with respect to
the
situation of the less privileged or marginalized.
The
privileging of knowledge
was considered by some to be an important factor in explaining why the
women’s
movement has not been able to insert gender dimensions into wider
movements for
social and economic change, and why women still have much to do to
acquire the
power needed to influence change in relation to forces of globalization
in
particular. There was thus need for building alliances and to make
connections
between micro and macro level phenomena. One
example of where this was done had been in relation to
the UN
Security Council resolution on Women, Peace and Security where women
saw and
used a chance to put women’s rights and humanitarian issues on the
international political agenda by linking rule of law, security, and
humanitarian and development issues. But women have still to get to big
issues
like privatization, a pattern that is seen by many women activists as
making it
more difficult for women to lobby for their “security” interests. Women
have
become increasingly skilled at lobbying governments using the human
rights of
citizens as their rationale. In addition,
women are discovering how globalization – and particularly global
communications – can be deployed to combat human rights abuses (e.g.,
through
circulation of online petitions).
Access to
private
decision-making is far less available to most women and women’s groups
or to
citizens groups in general. This is one of the major issues raised in
demonstrations against the World Trade Organization. On the other hand,
the
example of Indonesian women boycotting Nike was given to show ways that
women
could influence private corporations.
The need
for greater
solidarity between women of the North and of the South was posed as a
critical
element in confronting negative and undesired forces of globalization.
Another
participant countered this however by arguing that the issue was rather
to be
able to manipulate temporal situations, and that empathy, and not
solidarity
among women, was what was needed.
The
tension between
scholarship and activism was addressed throughout the discussion. Some noted a temporal disconnect between
analysis in the academy and events “on the ground.”
One participant, though, cited a number of
academic interventions in the 1990s that theorized academic and
activist work
as happening simultaneously if on different planes.
Another participant expressed concern about
the privilege specifically assigned to Western (or Northern) academic
knowledge, and pointed out that many policy practitioners in the global
South
are trying to undermine that hierarchization of types of knowledge,
though they
consistently face difficulties accessing data and research findings. At the same time, a number of participants
who identify themselves as academics also consider themselves to be
activists
and did not agree that the two are opposed. They cited the contribution
of
feminist critiques to development discourse as a case where academic
and
activist interests have coincided.
The next
session will be: “Human Rights and Human Security,”
Human
Rights and Human
Security
Facilitator:
The
facilitator,
Timothy
identified three
critical questions in the reading:
1)
What are human rights and are they
universal?
2)
Are human rights a form of moral
imperialism and what
is the relationship between rights and the neo-liberal project of
globalization?
3)
What is the link between human rights and
human
security and how do we want to continue to address human rights in this
context?
Timothy
then offered an
analysis of the readings with respect to each of these questions.
What
Are Human Rights and
Are They Universal?
According
to Ignatieff, “Human rights define the entitlements that human beings need to have in
order
to protect themselves from abuse.” Human
rights provide an inventory of what individuals should not do to one
another,
but do not recommend what they should live for. At
the same time, Ignatieff does not specify the abuses
against which
individuals need to be protected; from a feminist viewpoint, this
missing
element may be critical (as in the work of Charlesworth).
In contrast to Ignatieff, Cheah reads human
rights not as “entitlements,” but as “violent gifts” that reflect the
positionality and identities of their claimants. Still,
Cheah concedes that human rights are
the “only way” for the disenfranchised to mobilize.
Charlesworth sees rights as a reflection of “male life experiences,” and traditionally oppressive to women. Moreover, rights have generally been deployed
against abuses in the “public” realm, and not the “private.”
Cheah is
skeptical about the “universality” of human rights, arguing that their presumed
universality does
not take into account cultural differences. He
further calls for a rethinking of the “normativity”
that underlies
human rights, particularly in the light of global capitalism, and
concludes
that all ideals – including human rights – are contaminated or
conditioned by
the force field within which they are invoked. By
the same token, views of oppression are relative, and
any assertion
of right is shaped and limited by the subject’s positionality. For example, feminist groups in the South
have asserted a “right to cultural difference” and that “women’s rights
are
human rights.” Cheah argues, though,
that the feminist need to assert the right to cultural
self-determination as
integral to human dignity (the ostensible basis for universal human
rights) is
already a byproduct of unequal North-South relations.
Cheah then concludes that there is no pure
voice of cultural difference to place in opposition to the patriarchal
states
model of cultural difference that he says smothers the possibilities
for gender
reform.
Ignatieff,
in contrast to
Cheah, argues that human rights are compatible with diverse cultures,
though
the moral objectives behind human rights claims may be conflicting,
particularly when individual and collective rights are at stake. At the same time, Ignatieff argues that human
rights presume and promote a powerful moral universalism that
influences
government policy, constrains states and has a normative hold on
officials and
the general public. Still, activists
argue that human rights are honored more in the breach than in their
observance. Ignatieff also points to
some of the internal disagreements among human rights advocates,
including
whether to prioritize civil and political rights or social and economic
rights.
He identifies this dispute as “a renewal of Western doctrinal wars
between
bourgeois liberalism and the socialist traditions.”
This dispute is further echoed in the rights
debate between the developed and developing worlds.
Charlesworth
sees women’s
experiences as unique and specific to the private sphere, and thus
traditionally “untouched,” or unaccounted for, by the law.
In arguing that rights are a form of
patriarchal imperialism, Charlesworth claims that women’s experiences
have a
distinct cultural difference from those of men – an argument undermined
by
Cheah’s claim of the impossibility of a pure cultural difference
outside of
that already outlined by patriarchal states.
Are
human rights a form of
moral imperialism; or, What is the relationship between rights and the
neo-liberal project of globalization?
Ignatieff
asks whose
interests human rights serve, while Cheah looks at different groups
using human
rights discourse and asks if they have been “contaminated” by
globalization.
Ignatieff
concludes that
contrary to what some critics have said, human rights are not a form of
moral
imperialism, are compatible with cultural differences and moral
pluralism, and
are not a vehicle for standardizing cultures or for championing
individualism.
Nor, he argues, do human rights impose a single road to development. He
sees
human rights as embracing characteristics that are incompatible with
imperialism, i.e. self-determination, individual agency and equality.
He does
note that human rights objectives are not always mutually consistent,
for
example, collective rights of self-determination may conflict with
minority
rights or individual rights. He acknowledges that there are always
trade-offs
between competing moral objectives: for example, liberty versus
security,
collective rights versus individual rights.
Cheah on
the other hand
worries that globalization has established a defacto and oppressive
universality that cannot be transcended by normative action. Cheah
condemns the
West as maintaining an unjust international economic order and says
that the
actions of the North constitute “late capitalist theft.” He says the
West uses
human rights universalism to justify encroachments on the national
sovereignty
of the developing South and efforts to free transnational corporations
from
regulations. He does not agree with the neo-liberal view that the
spread of
free markets will lead to global democratization. He sees the arguments
about
the right to development put forward by some developing nations as also
being
contaminated by global capitalism since it leads to
internationalization of
indigenous capital – based on a Western model. Finally he sees the
voice of
human rights NGOs as also contaminated because they are not autonomous
from the
State despite their attempts to claim the normative status of an
international
public sphere or a global civil society.
This
contamination of NGOs
would also be of concern to Charlesworth who is trying to see human
rights
transformed to extend to the private sphere. To
the extent that the State is supreme and law is not
extended to
families, for example, Charlesworth sees women’s rights as being
overlooked.
Charlesworth
looks at the three generations of human rights and finds them sorely
lacking in
sensitivity to gender. She finds the legal treatment of public abuses
ignores
women’s realities – a problem that she argues is central to liberalism.
She
emphasizes that in dealing with violence against women in the family,
the law provides
very little protection. Rights, she argues, mainly protect men against
what
they fear.
First
generation rights are
those that the
individual can assert against the state. She
points out that from conception to old age, womanhood
is full of
risks and that few of these risks are the subject of law. She notes
that
rethinking the traditional notions of state responsibility is a vital
project
in women’s human rights law.
Second
generation rights are
economic,
social and cultural rights. These she says do not fit the individual
versus
states paradigm and thus they are more controversial in general.
Third
generation rights cover
collective
or group rights that rest on placing the well being of the community
over the
interests of particular individuals but where women are oppressed in
communities it fails to address this.
What is
the link between
human rights and human security and how do we want to continue to
address human
rights in this context?
Second-generation
rights and
women’s economic, social and cultural rights are implicated in all of
the
readings. The “right to development” and
the “rights-based approach to development” are particularly important
to
consider in this context, since they are rooted in the idea of economic
and
social security and linked to issues and processes of globalization. It’s also important to look more carefully at
third generation rights, in light of current events and the trade-offs
that
occur between individual human rights and collective rights in the name
of
security.
Discussion
Discussion
turned to the
relationship between the global spread of capital and human rights. One participant suggested that the three
generations of human rights (described above) could be looked at as
stages of
capital formation. Another argued that
each generation of human rights should not be seen as the direct
product of any
stage of capital formation; rather, the globalization of capital
depends on an
international order and the work of certain international bodies, like
the
United Nations and NGOs, in addition to transnational corporations. In Cheah’s terms, the human rights paradigm
is “contaminated” by, and complicit with, capital; they are
interdependent in
their growth and global circulation. One
participant explained this connection in terms of neoliberalism. Within the neoliberal project of
globalization, economic freedoms are considered essential to the
promotion of
other freedoms. Hence, once the market
is opened, oppression is relieved. The
spread of human rights and of capital thus feed on globalization,
prompting
some to argue that human rights are impossible to observe and claim
with free
enterprise.
Like human
rights, the
concept of “human security” has potentially been put to pernicious
uses, for
example in the
In looking
at the issues
produced by globalization, it is important to both look at history for
models
of effective social movements and to consider how our current moment is
historically different. It’s important
to think not just about the economics, but the politics of
globalization. The processes of
development have been
accompanied by – and in some cases accomplished by – violence, whether
structural or counter-insurgent (see, for example, the Escobar reading
for
October 10). And, the
Concern
was expressed that
academics and theorists, as well as the United Nations, do not
adequately take
into account the life experiences of people on the ground.
One participant suggested that rather than
focusing solely on the differences between scholars and activists, we –
as
activists, theorists, policymakers, and funders – must ask the crucial
question, what is our relationship to a social movement?
At the
same time, it’s
important to distinguish between the theory and the practice of human
rights. That is, what power do human
rights have in practice? What
institutions are individuals and communities dependent on to redress
violations
of their human rights? While in some
regions, people on the ground don’t know that they have human rights
(or they
have not been educated as to their uses), let alone what they are, in
many areas,
the human rights discourse has been enormously useful as a catalyst for
action
at the grassroots level.
One
participant argued that
human rights are powerful because they provide a normative paradigm,
while
human security does not have the same rhetorical strength, because it
has no
normative framework. Moreover, human
rights are linked to a number of other concepts that have been
important to
arguing not just for human rights, but “women’s rights as human
rights,”
including participation (in politics, in the economy) and entitlement,
as well
as the idea of “voice” and representation.
The
movement to claim “women’s rights as human rights” has been split in its agenda. In recent years, women’s human rights have
been claimed to mobilize against violence against women and for
reproductive
rights. Today, though, women have
deployed a human rights framework – in addressing the World Trade
Organization,
for example – in seeking economic justice. Human
rights need to be rearticulated to accommodate both
cultural
diversity and the indivisibility of rights, in efforts to apply rights
as a
means of protecting women and girls from abuse.
There also
exists on the
ground a degree of ambivalence about the uses of human rights in
general and a
concerted attempt to find alternative tools to ensure women’s and
girls’ security. From the perspective of many
feminist activists, human rights have been deployed to protect the
interests of
those in power, the rule of law, and capitalist expansion – that is,
the human
rights paradigm is contaminated.
In
relation to human rights,
then, human security may provide an alternate paradigm.
Within the field of security studies, human
security poses a critical challenge to traditional – that is national
or
military – security, and is hence thought to be potentially very
powerful. Still, human security, like
human rights, is
founded on a traditional Western model of dignity, individualism, and
the
(presumably) universal liberal subject – a model that has been subject
to extensive
feminist critique, as well as postcolonial critique among others, for
the
so-called universal’s exclusion of the non-white, non-male,
non-heterosexual,
and so on. In many respects, this is
precisely why women have to be involved in changing the traditional
view of
security and in shaping human security discourse, so as not to
reproduce these
exclusions.
Other
participants argued,
though, that human security and national/military security cannot be so
easily
disentangled and opposed. Security studies
were born of cold-war concerns and retain much of that sensibility. The job of Seminar participants, and those
invested in these issues, then, is to spin the discourse of human
security.
In doing
so, it is important
to look at the relationship of human security, as well as human rights,
to the
nation-state. A number of questions
arise here: Can we think of ensuring human security outside of a
dependence on
the nation-state for the protection of human rights, for example? If we think of the nation-state as declining,
and of power as becoming increasingly decentralized, to what
institutions do we
turn for accountability? Also, are there
ways the “state” shapes the “nation” through vehicles like human rights
and
security?
In
discussing human security, it’s important to remember that it has not
been
conceptualized as a replacement for human rights. Human
rights is typically considered a legal
discourse – that is, a tool for action – while human security serves as
more of
a political discourse. Activists
have
long been faced with resistance by states in protecting individuals’ economic,
social and cultural rights (second generation rights) because they are
not
political per se. Wedding human
security to human rights, though, politicizes these rights, and
potentially
provides a way to assign responsibility to the state.
A number of international organizations are
already taking this shift into account. UNIFEM,
for example is moving toward human security as an
objective.
The
next session will be: “Conflict, Terror, and the State,”
Conflict, Terror, and the
State
Facilitator:
Indai Sajor, Fellow,
Rockefeller Humanities
Fellowship Program Facing Global Capital
Invited
Guest: Kelly Dawn Askin,
Director, International Criminal
Justice Institute,
The
facilitator of the
meeting, Indai Sajor, began by pointing out that addressing
issues of
violence against women in situations of war and armed conflict, and
particularly determining who is to be held accountable for such crimes,
becomes
increasingly complicated and nuanced when we consider the wide range of
conflict situations impacting individuals and communities in the world
today, including,
for example, ethnic, border, and resource-based (e.g. gold, diamonds,
oil)
conflicts. In this context, the role of
the state – its participation in, and formation through, conflict or
violence – becomes especially important to examine. What
sort of international instruments are available for
redressing
state-sanctioned or -instituted violence? Also,
in deciding accountability for state violence, what
is the
presumed relationship between the state and the individual (that is, an
official of the state)? How is
victimization gendered in categorizing forms of state violence?
Invited
guest, Kelly Dawn
Askin, director of the International Criminal Justice Institute in
Washington, DC, and legal advisor to the International Criminal
Tribunal for
the former Yugoslavia, provided some background on the “revolutionary
advances” of international criminal law in declaring rape and other forms of
violence
against women crimes against humanity (if perpetrated by an individual)
and war
crimes (if perpetrated in a systemic manner by a state or non-state
actor
during conflict). At the
It should
be remembered,
though, that criminal cases fall within the ICC’s jurisdiction only
upon
exhaustion of all national remedies, or if the “state” in question is a
failed
state. Also, all of the tribunals convened
thus far have dealt specifically with conflict situations, and so have
not yet
set a standard for trying crimes of sexual and gender violence at the
international level during peacetime (crimes against humanity are
defined as
occurring either during peacetime or in conflict situations). Also, those individuals tried thus far at the
tribunals have been state actors (as opposed to non-state actors),
though
crimes against humanity and war crimes apply to both state and
non-state
actors. Thus within the arena of
international
criminal law, the state has consistently been targeted as the
site of
accountability in cases of sexual and gender violence.
In
response to this trend,
one participant argued that accountability should not be limited to the
state,
pointing to a new report released by the Women’s Rights Division of
Human
Rights Watch, detailing the involvement of national bodies in
international sex
trafficking and purchasing of women. International
peacekeepers, in their failure to respond to
this issue,
perpetuate a standard of impunity, in effect becoming part of the
problem, and
should also be held accountable.
Another
participant
expressed her concern over legally classifying sexual violence,
specifically
rape, as a war crime, while not specifying it as a crime against women. In
Another
participant
suggested, though, that in classifying rape as a crime against humanity – that
is, a crime not just in times of war, but in times of peace – the ICC
and other
supranational bodies have taken a tremendous step forward.
Furthermore, the example of how rape is used during
wartime, opens the door for new critiques of how
gender and sexual
violence operates within, and may be constitutive of, our own national
settings
outside the context of war. Truth
commissions, for example, in the wake of the recent decisions made by
international criminal tribunals, are beginning now to address such
gender
issues. Another participant agreed that
the ICC’s inclusion of issues of sexual exploitation and violence in
their
jurisprudence – particularly during a period of significant backlash
against
women’s rights – is a victory for the international women’s movement in
itself. Moreover, as Nagengast argues,
states are no longer enjoying absolute impunity. Nagengast
further suggests that new
hierarchies of governance are developing. One
participant questioned where the ICC might fit in this
context, and
to what extent it counters, or even challenges, the rule of states?
Other
participants expressed
much more suspicion about the “victory” of the ICC, and its
translatability to
other arenas, calling particular attention to the Enloe reading, which
undermines the opposition between war and peace by pointing out the
persistence
of militarization in post-conflict situations. While
positive outcomes of ICC and tribunal proceedings
can be
identified, we must also ask which women are being represented
and by
whom? Who is made invisible or silenced
by the process? What states and whose
interests are represented by the Court?
We must
also think about
what other forms of war, power inequities, and ideologies the ICC might
be
expanding and perpetuating. One
participant offered the
It was
further argued that
the international community (particularly the ICC and war crime
tribunals), in
practice, has not provided a model for ensuring human security
through
rule of law. As mentioned earlier, the
various war tribunals thus far have focused entirely on crimes in
conflict
situations and trying state actors, and thus have not produced a
framework for
dealing with social and economic threats, such as starvation,
malnutrition,
maternal death, and preventable disease, not to mention rape and other
forms of
sexual violence, outside of situations of armed conflict. From this perspective, the ICC is not yet a
site to which we can turn for enforcing comprehensive accountability of
state
and non-state actors and ensuring human security.
Another
participant argued
the danger of identifying sexual violence as the issue
affecting
women. By isolating sexual violence, we
reinforce a “male” model of security (often national or military
security). Such a model hinges entirely
on fear and violence, if not terror, and cannot account for
other
issues, such as those listed above, which concern the “quiet” violence
of
everyday life at the level of the individual. Certainly,
there have been great institutional successes
(such as with
the ICC and war crime tribunals) on the issue of violence against
women,
particularly sexual violence, but they risk reinforcing an ideology
whereby
women are classified specifically, if not exclusively, in terms of
their sexual
vulnerability. This same ideology is
used and promoted by states, such as the
At stake
in much of this
discussion was the question of how gender and gender issues – and
specifically
sexual violence here – get used to justify different political agendas
and
actions (e.g. to wage war under the guise of “humanitarian” intervention), but
also ideological agendas. For example,
we might think of television, where sexual violence is made provocative
and
sensational, and again pinpointed as the threat to women, who
are made
objects needing national and international protection, but only in this
regard.
Another
participant gave the
example of the former
At the
same time, we must
think further about the relationship between power and gender. How do feminists wittingly and unwittingly
participate in power games and use politics and complicity to their
advantage – and at what cost? Also central to this
discussion is the relationship between victimization and agency, which
are not
mutually exclusive terms. Some
participants expressed concern about focusing solely on issues of
sexual
violence against women, and how that reproduces a model of woman as
merely
victim. It was also acknowledged, though
that there is a certain type of agency within that status.
The women at the International Criminal
Tribunal for
It is also
critical that we
further examine the relationship between power and gender in terms of
privilege. As one participant reminded
us, not all women’s movements around the world begin with the battle
against
domestic violence. For many, gender does
not occupy such an isolated category, but intersects with issues of
class,
economic security, agency, or nationalism, for example.
It is also
important to
consider further the terminology that we deploy – and that is
officially
or institutionally deployed – to discuss issues of gender and violence. We must remember that “gender” is not
equivalent to women. What then do we
mean exactly by “gender-based” violence? Do
we risk again naturalizing woman’s status as victim in
declaring that
she was attacked because she was a woman? Also,
how might doing so further eliminate the possibility
of finding
and demanding accountability? How are
the internal differences among women elided by declaring rape a “crime
against women”?
The role
of, and our
expectations of, the nation-state remained a critical topic throughout
the
discussion. Do we want to turn to the
state for accountability if we think, as Nagengast suggests, of the
modern
state as founded and maintained through a system of fear and violence? The United Nations, as one participant
mentioned, has called at times for the strengthening of the
nation-state. It must be considered,
though, to which nation-state
we are referring. The
How then
do we make the
The next
session will be: “Cultures of Violence: Questions and Issues,”
Facing Global Capital,
Finding Human Security: A Gendered Critique
Cultures
of Violence:
Questions and Issues
Facilitator:
Victoria Pitts,
Faculty Fellow, Rockefeller
Humanities Fellowship Program Facing Global Capital; Assistant
Professor
of Sociology,
Invited
Guest: Charlotte Bunch,
Executive Director, Center for
Women’s Global Leadership, Rutgers Univeristy
The
facilitator of the
meeting, Victoria Pitts, began with a brief overview and
analysis of the
readings. Both Abusharaf and Biehl offer
narratives of concern with the dignity of the human body – a concept of
central
importance to both human rights and human security.
Both pieces either implicitly or explicitly
engage with, and problematize, human rights discourse by mapping out
some of
the contested forces of power embedded within it – including,
patriarchal
normativity, public (or bureaucratic) authority as opposed to private
experience, colonial over indigenous power, and technological and
medical
power.
Abusharaf,
by focusing on
the stories of women who support female circumcision, offers a critique
of
Western feminist approaches to issues of female circumcision and of
their “theoretical victimization of African women.” Abusharaf
focuses specifically on women who have undergone
infibulation,
and argues that these women demonstrate agency within the circumcision
ritual
itself. Abusharaf thus insists upon the
agency of these women, whether they decide to conform to or oppose
tradition – that is, agency lies within the act of decision-making itself, not in
which
decision they make. In addition,
Abusharaf places a great deal of emphasis in the role that ideology
plays in
the decision to undergo circumcision. In
particular, the stories of the women in Abusharaf’s piece reveal the
centrality
of their perspectives on, and beliefs about, the body, beauty,
cleanliness,
sexual control, and sexuality, for example, to their support of the
practice. Abusharaf further underscores
how the
practice also gives voice to the community, serving as an expression of
group
beliefs and identity, while also reinforcing a sexual sense of self and
identity. In relaying the personal
stories of African women in favor of the practice, Abusharaf opens her
audience
up toward better understanding the different ideologies – around issues
of
gender and sexuality, but also culture, community, and nation – at play
in
supporting and opposing female circumcision.
Abusharaf’s
piece calls
particular attention to the power differential between the West and
non-West,
and reads FGM as a site of identity formation around African cultural
opposition to Western colonial power. Abusharaf
further points to a Western emphasis on
individual integrity
in opposition to an African emphasis on community and relational
identity. In arguing the human rights case
for the
abolition or criminalization of FGM, Western feminists do not,
according to
Abusharaf, take into account ideological differences between the West
and non-West,
their own positions of power with respect to those women they aim to “help,”
and how their “helping” may be experienced as another form of Western
imperialism (particularly “moral imperialism” – see the discussion of
Ignatieff, October 24). Human rights
discourse, then, must be adapted in response to local contexts and
concerns,
rather than imposed from above. It’s
important to note that Abusharaf is not arguing in favor of female
circumcision, but insists that we must listen and respond to local
voices, as
well as reflect on our own positionality in challenging the practice.
Biehl’s
article takes on the
difficult issue of social abandonment and the thoroughly modern forms
of
institutional violence by which some populations are in effect “let to
die.” Biehl looks at how the democratic
state
apparatus and global capitalist market produces some people as citizens
and
others (for example, the poor, disabled, or ill) as non-citizens – politically
disenfranchised, as well as deprived and undeserving of biomedical and
social
resources. One of the primary issues
here is not only the invisibility of the “ex-human,” or “dead,” but is
the
invisibility of the agents and inner workings of such a bureaucratic
system. Biehl calls attention to not just
the state’s,
but our own, “failed witnessing” of, and learned indifference to, how
some
people are made expendable, as well as to the failure of accountability
on all
sides. We must ask, then, how such
forms of violence (often acted out as negligence) become legitimated? What ideological schemes are in place to make
us think of the disenfranchised as deserving of suffering, rather than
think of
them as marked as undeserving of the rights of citizenship? The Mahasweta piece similarly examines
questions of legitimation through the issue of state-organized
holocaust of
indigenous peoples.
In both
the Mahasweta and
Biehl pieces, we can identify an unhinging of the nation and state, as
the
state, through violence, decides who and what populations are included
as part
of the national social body. We must ask
then if human rights can be framed to address such cases of
institutional
violence. With respect to the Abusharaf
article, are human rights, and in this case women’s human rights, at
once
flexible and normative enough to respond to cultural differences?
Many
participants expressed
frustration with definition of the women’s human rights discourse as
Western. Invited guest, Charlotte
Bunch, Executive Director of the Center for Women’s Global
Leadership at
Another
participant argued
the similarities between practices such as female circumcision and more
common
Also,
although female
circumcision is an important issue, there is a danger in not also
turning our
attention to other forms of ritualized violence, whose effects impact
the body
with comparable immediacy and severity. These
forms include the violence of poverty and
development, communal,
ethnic, and religious violence, as well as the violence born of
fundamentalisms. How are these forms of
violence systematized
and legitimated, in effect veiling the power differentials produced by
the
forces of global capital, but also the complicity and participation of
state
actors in the delegation of privilege? One
participant suggested that the state has typically
been considered the
source of individual security. In recent
years, though, an increasing number of critics have argued that the
modern
state – even the most democratic – has always been founded on a
principle of
the marginalization of some to the advantage of others, and on
decisions about
the value of certain lives over others. At
the same time, we must consider how capitalism (in the
form of
privatization, intellectual property rights, or the highly touted
principle of
free trade, for example) works through and informs the functioning of
those
institutions and bodies from which we expect security, such as the
state or
hospitals.
One
participant suggested
that we further consider how such forms of institutional violence
reinforce
gendered inequities, ideologies, and power differentials.
Hence, though we must recognize the way
female circumcision, for example, can be a means for women to ensure
their
security (for one, a woman is thought hygienic, and is more
marriageable after
the surgery), we must not disregard how the practice subscribes to and
re-entrenches local patriarchal cultural norms. While
women’s survival strategies worldwide need to be
validated, it’s
also important to consider the broader ethical and discriminatory
repercussions
of these practices.
It was
further argued that
human rights – specifically the universality and normativity of human
rights – is the best protective tool available to counter ritualized, systemic,
institutional violence, including violence against women.
Bunch suggested that one of the major
limitations on the usefulness of human rights derives from the
genealogy of
first, second, and third generation human rights. As
discussed at the October 24 session, first
generation human rights focus on civil and legal rights and the state’s
responsibility to the individual. While
there are certainly systemic means by which individuals are deprived of
their
rights as citizens, much of the violence generated and perpetuated by
the
forces and movements of capital and the globalizing political economy
undermines second generation – or social, cultural, and economic – rights. Many critics, some feminists among
them, are
concerned that human rights are irreparably “contaminated” (to borrow
Cheah’s
term, see October 24 discussion) by their ideological and historical
connections to the fierce processes of globalization.
Others, while recognizing these links, still
see human rights as the only viable mode for potentially redressing the
violence wrought by states and global capital. The
issue at stake, then, is identifying the state and
non-state actors
responsible, particularly when the forms of violence in question are
rendered
legitimate by claims of promoting freedom, democracy, or development,
for
example. Another participant argued,
though, that we must watch our own language, and work to better
understand our
own complicities with the tenets of globalization, particularly when
promoting
and idealizing such concepts as universality, which carries its own
long
ideological history of exclusion.
Bunch
suggested that we
perhaps have more to be concerned about with respect to human security
than
human rights. Though human security was
cited as an improvement over other figurations of security (whether
national,
global, or military security), security can be a critical term within
efforts
by the
As on
October 24,
participants again turned to discussion and critique of the principles
on which
human rights are based, underscoring how these principles may be
inapplicable
to many local or indigenous contexts. Human
Rights are founded on a platform of liberal
individualism and
reason. This model of the universal
human subject (an individual capable of making rational choices)
ostensibly
disregards social context, but in fact veils the particularity of the
historico-political context that produces this model, as well as the
particularity of the subject (e.g. white, male, heterosexual,
privileged) who
gets to belong to “humanity.” From this
perspective, human rights are not universal.
Still, it
was argued, human
rights is the most practical means we have for engaging in political
struggle
and countering the global expansion of privatization, for example. Moreover, the principles, values, and
discourse
of human rights are generally the only ones accepted by governments,
however
superficially. Thus activists find
themselves dependent on human rights to effectively challenge states,
as well
as to reveal the contradictions embedded within, and threats to
security
produced by, their institutions and practices.
At the
same time, one
participant argued, we cannot neglect human security – and issues of
security
more broadly – because the
Finally, a
number of
participants emphasized the importance of listening and empathy in
dealing with
cultural differences, particularly in contrast to the cold rationalism
of human
rights. Hopefully, through such
affective tools, we might better recognize how some continue to be
excluded
from the category of the “human” – not to mention the category of
“women.”
The next
session will be: “Trafficking, Nations, and Boundaries,”
Facing Global Capital,
Finding Human Security
Trafficking, Nations,
and
Boundaries
Facilitator: Jacqueline Berman, Fellow, Rockefeller
Humanities
Fellowship Program Facing Global Capital
Invited
Guest: Rosalind Morris,
Associate Professor of Anthropology
and Director of the Institute for Research on Women and Gender (IRWG),
The
facilitator of the
meeting, Jacqueline Berman, gave some background on her
experiences and
work with issues of sex trafficking in
At the
same time, these
stories contrasted with Berman’s own experiences with women in
Berman
became interested,
then, in studying this contrast, and in investigating more closely the
debate
over, and responses to, issues of sex trafficking and women’s migration
for sex
work. For example, the European Union
and the
Some
participants, including
Berman, questioned the appropriateness of human rights in dealing with
issues
of prostitution and sex trafficking. Human
rights, as discussed in earlier seminar sessions,
are founded on a
Western model of individualism, and thus take dignity and rationality
as
fundamental conditions of humanity. Thus
human rights are “universal” in so far as this model of humanity is
universal. Some argued, though, that
this model does not always reflect the lived experiences of women in
these
situations, such as those with whom Berman worked in
Discussion
then turned to
broader implications of this example for claims of the universality of
human
rights. Though human rights produce the
effect of having no outside (“human rights are universal”), they are in
fact
constituted by the production of an outside – that is, some people are
always
left out of the normative category of the “human” that human rights
assume. This argument is central, for
example, to
Biehl’s discussion of the “ex-human” or “social dead” (see November 21). In Cheah as well (see October 24) the
universality of human rights is set up as an ideal, which is different
from
empirical reality. Through reason, then,
individuals recognize their inclusion in humanity, or rather their
right to
human rights. Furthermore, in practice,
human rights often assume an implicitly shared set of values, morals,
and interests. Part of the critique of
human rights, then,
is that in the effort to expand the group of those to whom human rights
apply,
these normative standards are also imposed from the outside.
One
participant suggested
that the universals presumed by human rights reflect the historical
moment in
which they were created and codified. Human
rights is first and foremost a tool – and more
specifically, a
legal discourse – but not an objective, absolute truth.
Human rights then is a site of perpetual
conflict, where parties with very different interests compete for
authority in
defining normative standards. We see in
the 18th century the development of certain universals along
with “virtual representation.” The question
of representation was, as in previous seminars, critical to – if often
implicit
in – the discussion. In short, where do
we find, or do we find, the voices and interests of sex workers in
either side
of the human rights approach?
One
participant further
argued that when we focus on the question of choice – that is, when we
try to
determine when migratory sex work is forced or voluntary – in order to
determine our response or appropriate action, we tend to obfuscate the
material
and economic realities experienced by sex workers, and produced by
globalization. Economic concerns then
are elided because of our ethico-moral concerns.
On a similar note, another participant
pointed out that once we think of women only as trafficked, we are in
danger of
not thinking of them as part of the global work force, and of
participating in
the concealment of their labor and the delegation of women as the tool
of
global capital. It was argued, though,
that Cheah helps us navigate out of this either/or situation (i.e.
women as
having either economic or moral value), by
recognizing the
complicities of human rights with globalization. While
Cheah notes that human rights remain
the best (if only) tool available for legally redressing some abuses,
he
recommends more self-reflective human rights practices in order to move
beyond
the oppressive constraints of rational normativity.
Some participants further argued the
importance of having human rights as a “universal” – and hence powerful
– framework with which to work, because, at least in theory, it is
accessible to
everyone. For human rights activists and
educators, the objective is to translate the concept to correspond to a
particular context.
A number
of participants
suggested that issues of sex trafficking are particularly complicated
to
address because of the anxiety that exists around the sale of sex, or
women “selling their bodies,” and questions of mobility, particularly women’s
mobility across national borders. Invited
guest, Rosalind Morris, Associate
Professor of
Anthropology and Director of the Institute for Research on Women and
Gender (IRWG)
at
One
participant suggested
that we look more closely at the relationship between labor power and
the human
body, specifically woman’s body. Many
feminist critics have argued that within patriarchal, capitalist
modernity
women’s bodies have been figured as vehicles for reproducing the family
and
thus the nation. Once the reproductive
value of this labor is removed and capital put into play, this
framework for
thinking about women’s role within the political economy is undermined. In the case of sex trafficking, though, the
issue is not just one of women’s labor power, but of women’s migration
and the
movement of women’s bodies across borders. One
participant pointed out that there is a tendency in
discussions
about women’s migration to focus only on migration for sex-work or sex
trafficking. The discussion then becomes
entirely about prostitution – and hence, women’s bodies and sexuality. What can be interesting about this shift to
focusing on sexuality is that in many cases the migrant sex workers are
third-world, postcolonial women – women who have not been traditionally
thought
of, particularly in the first world, as having sexual will – thus
challenging
“our” conventional notions about third-world women.
At the same time, it could be argued that
through this discussion, the perspectives and material realities of
third-world
women are, in effect, subsumed to a first-world model for thinking
about
women’s sexuality, as well as the individual, dignity, and choice.
It was
further argued that
there are a number of potential benefits to looking at sex trafficking
as a
migration issue, rather than making women’s migration an issue only of
sex. By focusing solely on the sexual
aspects of women’s labor and movement, we are complicit with the larger
tendency to fetishize women’s bodies as merely sexual and as an object
in need
of constant surveillance and protection. Moreover,
by thinking in terms of migration, we might
consider how sex
trafficking is a security issue, and how human security concerns and
state
security concerns are at times at odds with one another.
One
participant suggested
that we might think of sex trafficking in terms of laborers migrating
across
borders with economic motives, choosing to use their bodies in order to
find
more security. This situation then
becomes problematic, when their security (for example, physical
security) is
threatened. We might also note the ways
this movement for work is seen as threatening to others’ economic
security. One participant mentioned, for
example, that at one point French prostitutes went on strike in
response to the
influx of Eastern European sex workers into
At the
same time, migration
across national borders serves as a threat to state security and
produces a
great deal of anxiety on the part of the state, particularly after the
collapse
of the
Morris
suggested that sexual
difference serves here as the primary resource for reconstituting
borders. It was also noted that the UN
uses different
terminology to talk about women’s versus men’s migration: only women
are
“trafficked”; men are “smuggled.” Hence,
the state is not the only entity responsible for reinforcing
conventional
notions of sexual difference. Rather,
states, the UN and other international bodies, as well as feminist
human rights
activists participate in the reification of woman’s identity in
primarily
sexual, corporeal, and moral terms, at the expense of understanding,
recognizing, and responding to their roles within the global economy
and
politics, for example.
Finally,
as one participant
noted, there are additional ways in which people “sell their bodies” within
global capitalism. We might think
further about what the sale of one’s kidney, for example, does to our
conventional – or perhaps, normative – understanding of the human body
and
dignity, and therefore to our reliance upon a human rights framework. Notably, such instances of exchange have not
been mobilized for the production of mass anxiety around the security
of
borders, whether of the body or of the state.
The next
topic for
discussion will be: “Accountability and Citizenship,”
Facing Global Capital,
Finding Human Security
Accountability
and
Citizenship
Facilitator:
Premilla Nadasen,
Faculty Fellow, Rockefeller
Humanities Fellowship Program Facing Global Capital; Assistant
Professor
of History,
Invited
Guest: Ros Petchesky,
Distinguished Professor of Political
Science and Women’s Studies,
The
facilitator of
discussion, Premilla Nadasen, began with a brief overview and
analysis
of the readings, particularly the Sumantrai and Ong pieces. Nadasen proposed four clusters of key
questions through which to think about the readings and to focus
discussion:
1)
Through what processes, institutions, and
discourses
do citizenship and nationality get constructed?
2)
How do racial and cultural differences get
produced,
and how are they understood? Also, what
is the relationship between race and culture and how are they used to
produce
and reinforce power differentials and inequalities?
3)
What are the interconnections among, for
example,
race, gender, nationality, class, culture, and sexuality?
How does the state participate in the
construction of these categories, and in the production of political
inequities
along these lines of difference and identification?
Also, how are struggles for equity shaped by
interconnections among these categories?
4)
What might critiques of these practices of
differentiation, the valuation of some and not others as citizens, or
as “belonging” to the nation, mean for social organizing and for efforts
to effect
policy change?
Both Ong
and Sumantrai argue
that nationality and citizenship are imagined processes.
Sumantrai identifies a shift in
Sumantrai
and Ong both point
to the welfare state as having the power to discipline and control
subjects, to
both instill normative behavior in individuals and define or judge
individuals’ behaviors according to norms, and through such processes to decide who
belongs. Thus those state institutions
putatively designed to undermine and overcome inequality actually
reinforce
identity-based labels and hierarchies along lines of difference. Ong notes, for example, how welfare
assistance is given and taken in order to control the “needy.” At the same time, the “needy” have been known
to use the system to their advantage; Ong specifically cites those
women who
have wielded welfare over their husbands for some power-gain in their
domestic
lives.
Building
on the readings,
Nadasen suggested that race is created by state and non-state practices
and
institutions through processes of racialization, or “minoritization.” For Sumantrai, race, ethnicity, and culture
are not static, but shifting, heterogeneous categories.
Hence, individuals possess no natural, given
identity; rather, identities are constructed relationally.
Viewing culture and race as bounded and
coherent categories threatens to reinforce and naturalize, thereby
justifying,
processes of exclusion. Only by these
exclusions, and by the suppression of internal difference and dissent,
can
communities create coherence, however illusory.
Ong argues
that cultural
citizenship is always a process of self-making or subject-making. Ong looks particularly at immigration into
the
Ong and
Sumantrai also cite
how racial and ethnic identities are devalued by figuring them in
gender and
sexual terms. Sumantrai argues that, in
How, then,
have struggles
for equity been affected by such interconnections of identities? Sumantrai argues that, in Britain, the line
of demarcation between those who belong and those who don’t, or those
with
rights and those without, has shifted from one based on gender
difference to
one based on racial difference. In other
words, increased gender equity has been achieved through increased
differentiation of races, and has coincided with the implementation of
increasingly restrictive immigration laws and the systematic social and
political
exclusion of non-whites. A degree of
heightened privilege, then, was extended to white women, but at the
expense of
non-white women, not to mention non-white men. In
many cases, Sumantrai argues, one finds poor immigrant
women hired as
household workers in the homes of “liberated” white women.
Concomitant with these shifts has been the
construction of an ideal model of white masculinity and the “demasculinization” of men of color. Struggles for equality
and justice, then, typically involve, and some might argue rely for “success” on, certain exclusions. We cannot assume
that social movement victories have been victories for everyone.
Nadasen
then posed a number
of questions: What does all of this mean for the “universality” of
rights? Also, how does the “local” fit, or
not fit,
in a “universal” framework? In our
efforts to organize group action, how do we deal with divergent
interests? What are the potential dangers
in continuing
to discuss citizenship, belonging, and rights in terms of gender and
race, for
example? How do we redress
identity-based wrongs without reinforcing those identities as inherent,
bounded, and natural. How do we imagine
social organizing without a relying on what, based on the readings, we
understand to be highly problematic notions of sameness and difference? What problems potentially arise from an ideal
of universal rights founded on particular notions about the individual? Does an ideal of personal autonomy in effect
counter a model of identities as relationally formed, and is personal
autonomy
a worthwhile goal, or even feasible?
Sumantrai
proffers some
partial responses to these questions, calling for a radicalization of
democratic potential, rather than additional formal, procedural
gestures. She points out that political
struggle does
not occur only in the public arena, but in local communities. Furthermore, Sumantrai argues that consensus
is not possible; rather conflict is permanent, and dissent and ongoing
dialogue
necessary to real democracy. At the same
time, we cannot fix meanings of any rights or liberties, but must
recognize
them as changing according to context. Within
this understanding, freedom is always a practice.
Discussion
ensued about the
intersections among – and exclusions based on – gender, race,
ethnicity, and
class within various social movements. One
participant suggested that both the Ong and Sumantrai
articles
underscore the strategic role that concepts of family and gender play
in
constructing group identities, and particularly in racializing and
ethnicizing
certain groups, adding that these tendencies within the US and Britain
reflect
those nations’ particular colonial histories. Secondly,
the articles call attention to the shifting
political contexts
in which these processes of racialization and ethnicization occurred
(and
continue to occur). It was further
argued that, in
Disagreement
arose over
whether or not feminist or women’s movements – in the case of
Sumantrai’s
piece, the women’s movement in
A number
of participants
offered their experiences with and perspectives on the relationship of
various
women’s movements with other local movements. In
the Phillipines, for example, the women’s movement
developed out of
the national movement against the Vietnam War, particularly in response
to
gender divisions within the antiwar movement. Similarly,
in the
Nadasen
suggested, based on
her work, that the
Another
participant
suggested that, on the contrary, much of the 1960s feminist movement
was
radical and not bourgeois, and was very much focused on racial and
class-based
inequities, and that to argue otherwise potentially repeats the failure
and
bias of historical canonization. Also,
the media representations of the women’s movement have been profoundly
inaccurate – in focusing, for example, on women’s “rebellion” against
domesticity – and should not be accepted any more quickly than other
representaitons. Similarly, in watching
the news now, one would think that everyone in the
Discussion
then shifted to
the larger issues involved in building social movements and coalitions. One participant noted that social movements
do not evolve in a vacuum – that is, their members are always situated
within
various social structures (based on class or professional differences,
or
racial and ethnic groupings, for example) and historical contexts that
complicate such ideals as diversity of individuals and interests within
a
movement. Hence, though as a white
feminist, one may identify with anti-racist movements and oppose
racism, that
does not mean that the
At the
same time, in many
movements, there is not a strong desire among members to self-identify
as “feminist,” though our temptation may be to label them as such. For example, in
Another
participant pointed
out that the brand of feminism and feminist discourse manufactured by
the
United Nations in the mid-1980s similarly discounted issues of race and
class. At a number of UN women’s
conferences during this period, participants worked to develop one
discourse to
include all women globally, and to produce a platform for a movement
for
women’s equality with which all women could identify. “They” found, in their experience, that all
women could identify with a sense of being second-class citizens, and
all
experienced forms of discrimination, regardless of their particular
race,
ethnicity and class. There was some
anxiety felt about whether this strategy of universalization
effectively
unified women, particularly with so many differences (in race and
class, but
also in women’s and men’s highly variegated understandings of gender in
different parts of the world) having been glossed over, if not negated,
in
order to generate one foundation for commonality and solidarity. Discussions ensued about what “we” share and
what “we” don’t share, but with time the concern with divergent
interests (in
basic needs, employment rights, reproductive rights, et cetera)
dissolved for
the sake of building a coalition based on women’s secondariness. Agency and empowerment, then, became the
primary objectives on the coalition’s agenda.
Other
participants expressed
concern about offering inclusion in a coalition on certain terms or at
the
expense of particular critical issues. For
example, in organizing for, and soliciting
participation in, recent
anti-war protests, “Not in Our Name” (an anti-war coalition in
It was
also argued, though,
that coalition-building is often critical to struggles for social
change on the
ground. At the same time, there needs to
be greater consciousness of our connections with, and responsibility
to,
others, and of the adverse effects of our own complicities. In short, it was argued that we must realize
that what is called universal (here, a commonality shared by all women
as second-class
citizens) is not necessarily so, and does not in fact represent all
women
everywhere.
While
much of the discussion focused on the how the local does or, of greater
concern, does not get represented at the global, not to mention
national,
level, one participant pointed out how international standards and
norms can
infuse local politics, particularly with respect to the “contagiousness” of
human rights. While democracy had been
discussed as a process, it was noted that throughout transitional
states in
Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, democratization is
considered quite
quantifiable, and change has been guaged by benchmarks (e.g. now we
have voting
rights). For local women activists, the
awareness of sharing a common human rights framework that enables
change “at
home” and for women globally has been especially empowering.
Invited
guest, Ros
Petchesky, offered her perspective on these issues, particularly
with
respect to the role of, and possibilities for, current social movements
in the
Similarly,
human rights is a
conversation that is always changing and for which there cannot be –
and
shouldn’t be – any final resolution or closure. Furthermore,
human rights is a strategy, a rhetoric – not
necessarily
good or bad, but a method. We must think
of human rights and other normative frameworks, as well as
international
institutions, as sites of struggle. At
the same time, rights are not disconnected from one another; rather,
the
economic, social, and political must be thought in relation and as
shifting in
order to expand the rights framework to be adapted to particular
contexts – and
we can identify points of achievement in this respect.
For example, there have been advances in
gaining recognition of health as a human right, particularly in the
wake of the
global HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Petchesky
suggested that we
might find openings for the organization and advancement of social
movements in
the ironies, complexities, and contradictions of our current political
moment. For example, the US, the biggest
military imperial power in the world, has declared full-fledged,
endless war on
terror, repudiating any standards of multilateral agreement in the
process and
specifically targetting Islam states; however, Bush’s attack on
reproductive
and sexual rights, withholding of funds from the UN Population Fund
(UNFPA),
and reinstatement of the global gag rule closely allies him,
ideologically and
in practice, to those fundamentalist groups on which the US has waged
war. At the same time, while waging war in
part
under the guise of saving women worldwide, the Bush administration
consistently
puts feminists on the defensive by, for example, focusing discussions
about reproductive
rights entirely on abortion and undermining feminist concerns and
interests. In the context of such
contradictions, and keeping in mind the opportunities that they may
open up for
feminist and social justice advoctes at such a dangerous moment
globally,
Petchesky raised a series of questions:
1. Does the UN system – despite its political
weaknesses and its recent moves toward corporatization – still provide
a useful
arena for challenging and transforming global norms and policies?
2. Does human rights discourse still contain the
potential to embody transformative visions and to deploy transformative
strategies? How might the discourse and
machinery of human rights be strengthened or amplified by those of "human
security" (or also "global public goods"), rather than these
discursive frameworks being pitted against one another?
3. Does the concept of "global civil
society" have any strategic or normative value in this struggle? Where are its "locations" (e.g. UN
conferences,World Social Forum, local social forums, et etera)? How can transnational NGOs (focused, for
example, on women's issues, human rights, social justice, anti-racism,
the
environment, peace, et cetera) working in international arenas become
more
organically linked to community and locally based social movements?
4. What would a transformative and feminist
vision of "global governance" (including the global financial
architecture) look like?
Petchesky,
in considering
the potential of a “global civil society,” further noted that the
nation-state
is no longer the only player in the international political arena,
though we
are witnessing, particularly in the
One
participant questioned
the usefulness or appropriateness of thinking in terms of civil society
at this
moment, expressing particular concern about the erosion of civil
society in the
Another
participant
suggested that the “energy” of civil society has been co-opted by the
state
since the end of the Cold War, at which point we see the decline of
mass-based
social movements (organized, for example, by peasant and union groups)
which
represented civil society, or factions of it, and the rise of
foundation- and
state-funded nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), which took over the
role of
representing and acting on behalf of local interests.
In recent years, though, groups such as the
World Social Forum (WSF) have worked arduously to (re)connect, through
NGOs, “the masses” with higher-level institutions like the UN and World Trade
Organization (WTO). In this example, the
state is not necessarily addressed directly – perhaps opening
possibilities for
change on a broader scale. Another
participant argued, though, that while generating a space for
conversation
between the local and global may be useful for critiquing the
nation-state, one
still speaks from within it. Hence, in
order to change the nation-state, which remains quite powerful at the
global
level – particularly the
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