What is Black British Feminism?

Young looks at the place of black feminists in today's academy in Britain, and poses some questions for contemporary self-identified black and white feminists based in that country. There is a new confidence among some black, professional Britons but infiltration into the academy remains problematic for many. Black British feminists and writers are largely absent in so-called postcolonial literary canons developed in the Anglo-American institutions, and by and large black British feminists are only offered fragile support by white feminists. Although African-American feminism offers intellectual sustenance and networks, the situation in the United States is very different, particularly as, there, black feminism has had much more impact and recognition. Discussions of the intersections of race, class and gender are rare in Britain outside black feminism, and there has been much less attention than in the States to black women's writing. Perhaps some kind of 'provisional essentialism' is still needed, for it is difficult for black feminist academics ever to feel the question of race is optional. It can be argued that 'blackness' is used to describe women of very different origins, and can obscure differential histories, but 'blackness' is always a political concept, not a register of national belonging. Black women have transformed British culture, but white feminists have largely failed to understand their problems. Attention to the social history of black women in Britain, and particularly to the creative work of black women writers, filmmakers and other cultural workers, is the place at which a new analysis should begin.     

The Personal is Work is Political is Theoretical: Continuities and Discontinuities in Women's Studies, (Pro)feminism, “Men” and My Selves

This essay reflects on some specific questions posed by the organizers of the Past, Present, Future conference held at Umeå University, Sweden, in June 2007 to the keynote speakers on their personal experiences of the influences, inspirations, challenges, and problems in and around Women's/Gender Studies over the last 30 years. It extends the notion of “the personal is political” to: the personal is work is political is theoretical. It also critically reflects on continuities and discontinuities in women's studies, (pro)feminism, “men” and my selves. Four kinds of (spheres of) activity and experience (the personal, work, the political, the theoretical) are considered in relation to four social spaces, social sites, or social institutional formations (in this context, primarily: selves, “men”, feminism/profeminism, women's/gender studies).     

‘Atheism is not the problem. The problem is being a woman’. Atheist women and reasonable feminism

While the percentage of religiously unaffiliated women is growing in the West, little is known about the relationship between atheism and feminism. This article redresses the gap by exploring women’s identification with atheism and feminism. The central argument draws on qualitative interview data from the UK, Australia, the US and Poland and emphasizes the role of atheism as a background identity marker through which female subjectivity is enacted in everyday life. The findings are two-fold: first, atheism and feminism are both devalued identities when embraced by women; and second, identifying as an atheist affords the participants an impetus to invent a new vocabulary to account for their identity. In conclusion, I argue that atheism provides a catalyst for the post-feminist discourse of independence, empowerment and freedom of choice as the participants construct narratives of ‘reasonable feminism’.     

special guest contribution: is love without borders possible?

We set out by noting the preference for circular flows in ecological thought, and the related abhorrence of inefficiency and waste that Western ecology shares with mainstream economic thinking. This has often been manifest in a shared disdain both for uncontained, free-burning fire and for ‘unmanaged’ sexual desire. The paper constructs a ‘pyrosexual’ counter-narrative that explores the mutually constitutive and generative implication of sex and fire. Bringing together the solar ecology of Georges Bataille, feminist and queer thinking about sexuality and reproduction, and a range of ways of theorising biological life and fire, we explore how fire mediates between organismic desire and the energetic dynamics of the earth and solar system. The first section takes a genealogical approach to fire and sex that traces their entanglement from the initial ‘assembling’ of fire through to the emergence of a fire-handling creature. The second section looks at how fire has been contained and intensified by human actors, and the role that heat-driven transformations of inorganic matter have played in the incitement and channeling of desire in urban spaces. The third section addresses the development of industrial ‘heat engines’ and the implications for desire and reproduction of tapping vast reservoirs of subterranean solar energy. We round off by beginning to consider what alternative possibilities might lie in the renegotiation of sex and fire on a planet undergoing rapid change.     

Why a materialist feminism is (Still) Possible—and necessary

The title of this paper derives from Christine Delphy's (1980) rejoinder to her Marxist critics, formulated at a time when feminist theory was centrally preoccupied with material social inequalities. Since then, we have witnessed the so-called “cultural turn” as a result of which perspectives that focus on social structures, relations, and practices have been sidelined. Not all feminists, however, took this turn, and there have recently been signs of a revival of materialist feminism. In assessing the effects of these theoretical shifts, and in making a case for the continued relevance of materialist feminism, I will focus on the analysis of gender and sexuality. Here, I will argue that a sociologically informed, materialist approach has more to offer feminism than more culturally oriented postmodern and queer perspectives.     

“Violence is everywhere!” An analysis of children's narratives on violence

Exposure to violence is a threat to the health and well-being of society, especially for children. Previous research on youth exposure to violence has focused primarily on the implications for victims or the treatment of the offenders. While some research has concentrated on the lived experience of the children subjected to violence, it has generally been defined within a specific domain such as domestic violence or bullying. Using student essays available from the “Do the Write Thing” (DtWT) Challenge, this research explored significant issues of violence as experienced by middle school children in southeast Texas. This research used a thematic approach for a qualitative analysis of 132 essays submitted during the 2015 school year. Essays were coded and categorized to identify major themes of how children describe their experience of violence and assign meaning to violence in their lives. Several themes within three domains (cognitive, social and moral) arose including the pervasiveness of violence, feelings of helplessness, and violence as “wrong.” Results indicate that students wrote most about personal experiences and how violence permeates their daily lives. Implications for practice and services to children are discussed.     

‘The Synthesis is in the Machine’: An Interview with Silvia Federici

ABSTRACT

In this interview Marxist feminist theorist Silvia Federici discusses the following: the relationships between accumulation and reproduction; biotechnology; the recent resurgence of social reproduction theory as exemplified by work in Endnotes and Lies; the mystification of gendered labour; the disciplining of productive bodies; the sites and technologies of primitive accumulation in the present; and the reproduction of feminism and other social movements in the twenty-first century.     

‘history’ is now: feminist theory and the production of historical feminisms1

Over the last decade, feminist practitioners across a variety of disciplines have been invoking history as an important grounding for both feminist politics and feminist theory. At the same time, however, insufficient account is taken of the extent to which standardized versions of ‘the feminist past’ are being invoked to represent a wide variety of feminist experiences and an equally heterogeneous set of historical circumstances and cultural contexts. It is suggested that if feminist reconceptualizations of history are to be taken seriously – if, in other words, history is the production of knowledges about the past and is itself contingent on the conditions of the present – feminist theorists must begin to reference both the imperial legacies of Anglo-European feminism and the multiplicity of feminist movements around the world. Only when feminists of all disciplinary persuasions begin to acknowledge the complex historical legacies of modern feminisms and situate their own critiques within them will feminist theory be properly grounded in, and responsive to, the exigencies of feminist history.     

What is a Fair Trial? Rape Prosecutions, Disclosure and the Human Rights Act

This article engages with the vogue for predicting the effects of the Human Rights Act 1998 by focusing on the rape prosecution and trial. The specific interest is feminist scrutiny of the right to a fair trial, particularly the concept of ‘fairness’, in light of the increasing use of disclosure rules (in Canada and England) to gain access to medical and counseling records. Transcending the two contemporary narratives of ‘victims’/women’s rights and defendants’ rights in the criminal justice system, the authors argue for the infusion of the legal debate on disclosure with feminist understandings of wider cultural debates. They suggest that an increased reflexivity about intimacy, publicity and power, leading perhaps to the development of a concept of ‘democratic publicity’ (Fraser, 1997, p. 100), might help to revision the meaning of ‘relevant’ evidence in the rape trial. They also suggest that the wide-ranging cultural debate about memory, truth and history, and the emerging commitment to experimentation in responding to massive, institutionalised human rights violations (including apartheid, war crimes and child abuse) might be of use in deepening current thinking about the rape trial and listening to the ‘voice’ of the complainant. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

‘Misery is My Company Now’: Nepal's Peasantry in the Face of Failed Development

Peasants are more than objects of theoretical analysis and intellectual exercise, distanced from the day-to-day life that they live. This study portrays how peasants' lives have changed as a result of failed development and what the future may hold for the Nepali peasantry. It is an unfolding story of growing vulnerability gripping peasant livelihood, a story based on direct observations and discussions with numerous peasants during several field studies, as well as personal experience and background.     

Striving for Educational and Career Goals During the Transition After High School: What is Beneficial?

The present study takes a motivational perspective that views youths’ educational and career engagement as influential and potentially competing for the same motivational resources in the transition to adulthood. We investigated whether motivational engagement with educational and career goals in the year after high-school graduation was differentially associated with educational, career-related and subjective well-being outcomes 2 and 4 years after school graduation. Our longitudinal study of a multi-ethnic sample of Los Angeles high-school graduates followed participants 2 years (N = 561; 61.5 % female) and 4 years (N = 364; 59.8 % female) after high school graduation. The findings indicate that motivational engagement with educational goals after high school graduation predicted educational attainments and psychological well-being at follow-up 2 and 4 years after graduation, and occupational progress at 4 years after graduation. Work hours assessed shortly after high school graduation were associated with poorer educational outcomes both at 2 and 4 years after high school. Occupational goal engagement was not associated with better outcomes, but predicted less educational attainment 4 years after graduating. Thus, educational goal engagement predicted favorable outcomes, whereas career-related goal engagement for the most part was neutral with some select associations with negative educational outcomes. A strong motivational commitment to educational goals, but not to career goals, is an important component of a successful transition to adulthood.     

‘If the Time is not Ripe,Then it is Your Job to Ripen the Time!’ The Transformation of the YWCA in the USA from Segregated Association to Interracial Organization, 1930–1965

This article explores the processes behind the transformation of the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) in the USA from a segregated organization in 1920 to an organization promoting racial equality, both within its ranks and in the wider community by 1965. Despite the continuation of segregated practices within some parts of the YWCA until the late 1960s, African‐American women were able to influence the YWCA within national divisions, notably the Negro Leadership Conference and the National Student Council. The influence of African‐American women within the national organisation made the YWCA’s toleration of segregation, both within its own association and in American society, untenable. The interracial friendships and relationships formed by women within the YWCA were crucial in breaking down the national organization’s acceptance of segregation and creating the will to overcome regional inertia, conservatism and hostility.