Imagining (the) Difference: Gender,Ethnicity and Metaphors of Nation

This article critiques the way in which three feminist authors reinscribe traditional liberal values when seeking new ways of thinking about the nation. It suggests that in rejecting affective or embodied metaphors, such as community or kinship, the authors fall into the trap of reinscribing values which have historically excluded women and ethnic or racial minorities from full participation in the polity. The article argues for a rejection of the affect/rationality model which underpins these arguments and suggests that new metaphors for the nation will emerge as those who have been excluded claim a place in the polity.     

between Pachamama and Mother Earth: gender,political ontology and the rights of nature in contemporary Bolivia

Focusing on contemporary Bolivia, this article examines promises and pitfalls of political and legal initiatives that have turned Pachamama into a subject of rights. The conferral of rights on the indigenous earth being had the potential to unsettle the Western ontological distinction between active human subjects who engage in politics and passive natural resources. This essay, however, highlights some paradoxical effects of the rights of nature in Bolivia, where Evo Morales’ model of development relies on the intensification of the export-oriented extractive economy. Through the analysis of a range of texts, including paintings, legal documents, political speeches and activist interventions, I consider the equivocation between the normatively gendered Mother Earth that the state recognises as the subject of rights, and the figure of Pachamama evoked by feminist and indigenous activists. Pachamama, I suggest, has been incorporated into the Bolivian state as a being whose generative capacities have been translated into a rigid gender binary. As a gendered subject of rights, Pachamama/Mother Earth is exposed to governmental strategies that ultimately increase its subordination to state power. The concluding remarks foreground the import of feminist perspectives in yielding insights concerning political ontological conflicts.     

Queer nations: Nationalism, sexuality and the discourse of rights in Quebec

Gays and lesbians are full-fledged members of the great Quebec family, and it is perhaps time to reinvent and enlarge our family. The research on which this article is based was undertaken while I was a visitor at the Faculty of Law, McGill University, Montreal, in 1996. I would like to thank the University and colleagues in the Faculty of Law for their collegiality during my stay. An earlier version of this article was presented at the Critical Legal Conference, University of East London, 6 September 1996. My thanks to the participants for their insightful questions and comments, and thanks also to Didi Herman and Davina Cooper for their help on a previous draft.     

Gender,Metaphor and the State

The neo-liberal upsurge of the last twenty years and the neo-liberal case against the welfare state has gained much of its emotional force from a sub-text which is highly gendered. Whereas social liberalism had contained the promise of more autonomy within the private sphere and more caring values in the public sphere, neo-liberalism depicts the results of social liberalism as a loss of self reliance - through ‘over-protection’ by the state in the public sphere and usurpation of male roles in the private sphere. The identification of the welfare state as female (the ‘nanny state’) helps fuel resentment on the part of those already confused by rapidly changing gender roles.This paper tracks the sex change which took place in the image of the liberal state as it evolved out of the night watchman state - the link between the women's suffrage movement and social regulation, maternal principles of distribution and demands for the public organization of caring. It examines the neo-liberal rejection of the breast and neo-liberal claims that the maternal state is incompatible with ‘self-reliance’ and a barrier to competitiveness in the world market.     

Gender,war and militarism: making and questioning the links

Feminist Review - The gender dynamics of militarism have traditionally been seen as straightforward, given the cultural mythologies of warfare and the disciplining of ‘masculinity’ that...     

Enabling Citizenship: Gender,disability and citizenship in Australia

This paper queries the absence of disabled voices in contemporary citizenship literature. It argues that the language and imagery of the citizen is imbued with hegemonic normalcy and as such excludes disability. Feminist perspectives, such as those which argue for a form of maternal citizenship, largely fail to acknowledge disability experiences. Exclusionary practices are charted and links are made between gender, race and disability in this process. A citizenship which acknowledges disability is fundamental to re-imaging local, national and international collectivities.     

Recognising Place,Space and Nation in Researching Women's Movements: Sisterhood and After

Sisterhood and After: The Women's Liberation Oral History Project has attempted to capture regional and national as well as ethnic diversity within the complex geographical and political entities of the United Kingdom. We argue against generalising about the UK or ‘British’ movement, important as the cities of England and specifically London have been to the development of political mass, acknowledging the independent networks in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Our findings suggest that in contrast to English activists' tendency to be suspicious of the state, in the ‘Celtic periphery’ of Wales, Scotland and – more complicatedly – Northern Ireland, feminists have more often sought state–level political opportunities to advance claims within these jurisdictions.     

依靠工人阶级发展生产力是我们的政治优势

中国共产党代表中国先进生产力的发展要求 ,证明中国工人阶级是先进的生产力。“全心全意依靠工人阶级是我们党和国家的政治优势”。在现代生产力要素中 ,资本、技术、劳动缺一不可 ,都处在重要位置上。但是 ,社会主义发展生产力 ,其突出特点在于以社会公平为动力 ,充分尊重和体现劳动创造社会财富和社会价值的潜能 ,使以工人阶级为代表的劳动者充分掌握知识和技术 ,并广泛利用国内外资本、促进生产力的发展。这是我国推动经济建设 ,实现经济发展宏伟战略目标的最大优势。从历史上看 ,建国后我国的社会主义经济建设虽然缺少资本和技术 ,但有…