Women's Activism, Feminism, and Social Justice

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret A. McLaren
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Activism ◽  
Cultural Imperialism ◽  
Gender Justice ◽  
Women's Activism ◽  
Political Responsibility ◽  
Economic Exploitation ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Relational Framework ◽  
Individual Success

Informed by practices of women’s activism in India, this book proposes a feminist social justice framework to address the wide range of issues women face globally, including economic exploitation; sexist oppression; racial, ethnic, and caste oppression; and cultural imperialism. The feminist social justice framework provides an alternative to mainstream philosophical frameworks that analyze and promote gender justice globally: universal human rights, economic projects such as microfinance, and cosmopolitanism. These frameworks share a commitment to individualism and abstract universalism that underlie certain liberal and neoliberal approaches to justice. Arguing that these frameworks emphasize individualism over interdependence, similarity over diversity, and individual success over collective capacity, McLaren draws on the work of Rabindranath Tagore to develop the concept of relational cosmopolitanism. Relational cosmopolitanism prioritizes our connections, while acknowledging power differences. Extending Iris Young’s theory of political responsibility, McLaren shows how Fair Trade connects to the economic solidarity movement. The Self-Employed Women’s Association and MarketPlace India empower women through access to livelihoods as well as fostering leadership capabilities that allow them to challenge structural injustice through political and social activism. Their struggles to resist economic exploitation and gender oppression through collective action show the importance of challenging individualist approaches to achieving gender justice. The book concludes with a call for a shift in our thinking and practice toward reimagining the possibilities for justice from a relational framework, from independence to interdependence, from identity to intersectionality, and from interest to sociopolitical imagination.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Margaret A. McLaren
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Action Research ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Social Activism ◽  
Economic Justice ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Universal Human Rights ◽  
Feminist Work

This chapter provides an overview of the book, explains the context of the project, and introduces a feminist social justice framework based on anti-oppression and anti-exploitation. The chapter also outlines a feminist social justice approach drawn from a wide range of feminist work. One feature of this approach is the connection between theory and practice. The chapter discusses the participant action research that the book uses; interviews and observation of grassroots women’s organizations in India engaged in political and social activism and grounded in economic justice projects informed the feminist social justice framework. This framework offers an alternative to the liberal paradigm of universal human rights, neoliberal economic projects, and cosmopolitanism for analyzing and pursuing global gender justice. The feminist social justice approach recognizes the importance of relationality, intersectionality, and power relations for analyzing the complex relations of oppression women face globally.

Women’s Activism as a Model for Feminist Theorizing

2019 ◽  
pp. 25-56
Author(s):  
Margaret A. McLaren
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Transnational Feminism ◽  
Women's Leadership ◽  
The Self ◽  
Gender Justice ◽  
Women's Activism ◽  
Organizational Decision Making ◽  
Comprehensive Strategy ◽  
Global Connections

This chapter describes the work of two grassroots women’s organizations in India, the Self-Employed Women’s Association and MarketPlace India. It provides background on each organization and identifies four themes in their work: Collaboration and Participation, Women’s Leadership, Women’s Empowerment, and Respect for Diversity and Global Connections. Drawing upon actual struggles for economic and social justice, the chapter shows how these organizations empower their members through dignified labor, participation in organizational decision making, and developing leadership. The organizations also cultivate a respect for diversity of identities. This respect for diversity coincides with the ability to criticize pernicious traditions and practices. Each organization empowers its members to challenge structural injustice through social and political activism. The chapter demonstrates the effectiveness of beginning from the local and moving toward the global to promote gender justice, and it suggests that the comprehensive strategy that these organizations employ could serve as a model for transnational feminism.

Duoethnography: A Polytheoretical Approach to (Re)Storing, (Re)Storying the Meanings That One Gives

2020 ◽  
pp. 396-423
Author(s):  
John Joseph Norris ◽  
Richard D. Sawyer
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
Third Space ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Core ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Core Elements ◽  
Feminist Inquiry

This chapter summarizes the advancement of duoethnography throughout its fifteen-year history, employing examples from a variety of topics in education and social justice to provide a wide range of approaches that one may take when conducting a duoethnography. A checklist articulates what its cofounders consider the core elements of duoethnographies, additional features that may or may not be employed and how some studies purporting to be duoethnographies may not be so. The chapter indicates connections between duoethnography and a number of methodological concepts including the third space, the problematics of representation, feminist inquiry, and critical theory using published examples by several duoethnographers.

Enterprising activism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leah Bassel ◽  
Akwugo Emejulu
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Third Sector ◽  
Minority Women ◽  
Enterprise Culture ◽  
Women's Activism ◽  
The Third ◽  
Welfare Mix ◽  
Third Sector Organisations ◽  
The Third Sector ◽  
The Impact

In this chapter, we explore how the changing politics of the third sector under austerity problematises minority women’s intersectional social justice claims in Scotland, England and France. We begin by exploring the ‘governable terrain’ of the third sector in each country since the 1990s. As the principle of a ‘welfare mix’ becomes normalised in each country, the reality of having different welfare providers vying for state contracts seems to prompt isomorphic changes whereby third sector organisations refashion themselves in the image of the private sector as a necessity for survival. We then move on to discuss the impact these changes in the third sector are having on minority women’s activism. We analyse how the idea of enterprise has become entrenched within these organisations and how an enterprise culture is problematically reshaping the ways in which organisations think about their mission, practices and programmes of work—especially in relation to minority women. We conclude with a discussion about what the marketisation of the third sector means for minority women. We argue that political racelessness is enacted through enterprise as minority women’s interests are de-politicised and de-prioritised through the transformation of the third sector.

scholarly journals The right to be Freepeople: Relational voluntary-assisted-advocacy as a psychological and ethical resource for decolonizing intellectual disability

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 556-574 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Capri ◽  
Leslie Swartz
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Intellectual Disability ◽  
South African ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Social Activism ◽  
Relational Ethics ◽  
Thematic Content Analysis ◽  
Political Conditions ◽  
The Right ◽  
Empirical Material

Participating in social activism implies responsibility for its exchange and creation. We focus on Intellectual Disability (ID) as an advocacy site for individuals who are dependent on assistance with activities of daily life, and attend to the process of taking care during social justice projects. Our paper responds to current South African social justice controversies perpetrated against people who may be unable to independently mobilize against increasingly othering – even deadly – socio-political conditions. Underpinned by relational Ethics of Care, voluntary-assisted-advocacy can be a psychologically relational, intersubjective, and societal project that strives for ID citizenship-making and social justice. This paper draws on numerous interviews and a number of ethnographic observations in exploration of ID care. Empirical material was subjected to thematic content analysis, and participant quotes bring our argument to life. Relationships among people with Intellectual Disability (PWID) and non-ID assistant-advocates are asymmetrical. We can either uphold dominant non-ID voices, or transform socio-political ruling relations that maintain dependence on conditions of power and inequality. Our contributions to the advocacy we co-create today will shape the activism we will depend on in the future. We consider relational voluntary-assisted-advocacy as a psychological and ethical resource for sustainable, mutually satisfying social change.

Beyond Economism

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
John S. Ahlquist ◽  
Margaret Levi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
The United States ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Political Commitment ◽  
Aggregate Behavior ◽  
Self Selection ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Service To Others ◽  
Governance Arrangements

This chapter explores the variation in organizational norms, governance arrangements, and social networks that produce systematic differences in aggregate behavior. Left-wing longshore union members give up time and money to fight on behalf of social justice causes from which they can expect no material return. Parishioners of churches throughout the United States risk jail to shelter asylum seekers. Altruism is common enough, and so are volunteering, political commitment, and unselfish service to others. The chapter asks why and how do some organizations produce membership willingness to self-sacrifice on behalf of a wide range of political and social justice issues. In some instances, the answer may be simple: self-selection. The more interesting cases are those in which individuals join for one reason but come to pursue goals they may not have considered previously.

The Inclusion and Design of Cultural Differences in Interactive Multimedia Environments

2019 ◽  
pp. 532-556
Author(s):  
Vehbi Turel ◽  
Eylem Kılıç
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Interactive Multimedia ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Design And Development ◽  
Learning Materials ◽  
Development Stages ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Multimedia Environments

A concern for social justice and the inclusion of cultural differences as a requirement of social justice in all learning materials, whether they are in the form of conventional materials or Interactive Multimedia Environments (IMEs), is the moral responsibility of all educators who want to contribute to humanity as well as long-lasting peace in our world. Such a responsibility requires a wide range of philosophical, political, and sociological discourses, informing multiple debates and their implications in the field of education. As a requirement of this, in this chapter, the inclusion and design of cultural differences in IMEs are focused on. The design and development stages of IMEs are categorized into six separate stages: (1) feasibility, (2) setting up a team of experts, (3) designing, (4) programming, (5) testing, and (6) evaluating (Turel & McKenna, 2013, pp. 188-190). Each stage is vital to the design and development process for cost effective and socially just IMEs. To be able to achieve cost effective and genuinely socially inclusive IMEs, a wide range of principles and guidelines need to be borne in mind at each stage. Here, the inclusion and design in IMEs of the cultural differences that need to be considered while designing and developing such environments (i.e. at stage 3 as well as 4) are focused on. Some examples of thought out and customized computerised cultural differences from an IME as well as some concrete examples from the Turkish context are given.

Business Ethics is Socio-Political, or Not at All

2015 ◽  
pp. 251-281
Author(s):  
Ana-Maria Pascal
Keyword(s):  
Business Ethics ◽  
Theoretical Background ◽  
Kantian Ethics ◽  
Political Responsibility ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Mining Project ◽  
Public Ethics ◽  
High Degree ◽  
The Impact

This chapter explores the moral aspects of commercial deals that allegedly democratic governments enter into with foreign investors. These are discussed against a twofold theoretical background – where the philosophical ideal of public ethics based on truth and transparency meets business ethics theories. The Kantian ethics of duty proves to be the key link between these, as particularly relevant for cases where the impact on a wide range of stakeholders is considerable. The main case under consideration is the controversial USD $2 billion Romanian mining project at Rosia Montana, which highlights the need for accountability mentioned above and lends itself well to a multi-fold business ethics analysis. The role of the civil society in effectively stopping the project is a good illustration of the stakeholder theory. The chapter concludes with the thesis that a high degree of socio-political responsibility may be best achieved when trying to combine principle-based and utilitarian thinking.

scholarly journals An Exploration of Patient Ergonomics in Historically Marginalized Communities

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 914-918
Author(s):  
Rupa S. Valdez ◽  
Richard J. Holden ◽  
Kapil Madathil ◽  
Natalie Benda ◽  
Richard J. Holden ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Network ◽  
Human Factors ◽  
Educational Background ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Marginalized Communities ◽  
Community Or ◽  
Human Factors And Ergonomics ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Geographic Setting

The growing field of patient ergonomics is built on an understanding that patients and their social network members increasingly play a key role in managing their health and healthcare across a wide range of settings including the home, workplace, and community. Over the last several years, we have traced, explored, and debated emerging research in this area, including the theories, methods, and strategies for implementation that are needed to support this new area of human factors and ergonomics. In this current panel, we begin a new dialogue in this space, one that is inspired not only by our previous discussions but also by recent conversations in our community about the need for human factors and ergonomics to consider issues of inclusivity, diversity, and social justice. To that end, each of our five panelists will present the patient ergonomics research they are conducting within a historically marginalized community or population and highlight lessons learned from their experiences. This presentation of work spanning considerations of gender, age, race, geographic setting, educational background, and disability will serve as a foundation for a wider discussion with the audience about how patient ergonomics as a field can prioritize and support this type of work.

Gender, Justice, and the Environment: Connecting the Dots

2012 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith A. Byfield
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Justice ◽  
Gender Justice ◽  
Women's Activism ◽  
Nigerian Women ◽  
Connecting The Dots

In this paper I attempt to connect several dots, specifically my research on African women's activism, environmental justice, and climate change. The book on which I am currently working is tentatively entided “‘The Great Upheaval’: Women, Taxes and Nationalist Politics in Abeokuta (Nigeria), 1945–1951.” The study examines the struggles of Nigerian women to shape the nationalist agenda and their setbacks as the country moved decisively toward independence. At its core lies an analysis of a tax revolt launched by women in Abeokuta in 1947. The Abeokuta Women's Union (AWU), under the leadership of Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti (the mother of the late musician Fela Kuti), began a protracted protest against a tax increase. This revolt is well known in Nigerian popular history, and many people outside of Nigeria were introduced to it in Wole Soyinka's memoir, Ake: The Years of Childhood (1981:164–218).

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