that deserve to be remembered and which go down in history as important,
if not turning point, moments. However, some struggle to be identified
as such and often the work of understanding and recovery occurs with
difficulty, so it becomes necessary to also question the oblivion or the
complexities of the transmission of events. ---- In investigating what
is defined as transnational feminism and the different forms that this
can take, we stumble upon the World Women's Conferences, organized by
the United Nations, between the mid-1970s and the early 1990s. The four
conferences took place in Mexico City (1975), Copenhagen (1980) and
Nairobi (1985), followed by the Beijing Conference in 1995, whose
Platform of Action is still a point of reference for women's rights today. .
In this context, transnational feminism has created a physical and
symbolic place of global meeting that has seen the emergence of
perspectives and practices that have led to a feminist questioning,
through the history of an 'internal' conflict that reaches up to the our
days. If today we discuss with greater awareness a part of white
feminism that has not been able or willing to see other feminisms and
demands, as well as the differences between women, too often we ignore
that a postcolonial and intersectional perspective was implemented
before the diffusion and success of these terms. The study of the
Conferences allows us to observe what happened in years usually
considered to be the decline of feminism, in a context that at first
glance could be read as a purely institutional context. First of all, it
must be underlined how the periodization of feminism in waves has often
prevented us from detecting what happened in the less evident moments of
mobilization but, above all, it has not allowed us to know what was
happening in countries other than Western ones. As a result, essential
moments for the development of shared feminist practices and theories
have slipped through the cracks of the narrative. The 1980s are in fact
those in which various feminisms of the Global South, as well as black
feminism in the United States, emerge forcefully, not only in action but
also as criticism and denunciation of structural elements of
discrimination, such as colonialism, capitalism, neoliberalism. but also
towards a white feminism, considered hegemonic, if not itself the bearer
of forms of discrimination and stigmatisation. It is therefore no
coincidence that women from a large part of the world, strengthened by
years of intense mobilization, were ready to seize the political
opportunity offered by the United Nations, capable of giving it
direction, as well as of weaving cross-border relationships, moreover it
certainly wasn't the first time. In a short time they organized
themselves and participated en masse in the Conferences, creating
parallel Forums which became transnational spaces for discussion and
action. In summary, these international meetings have given rise to a
composite political space in which very different actors have acted,
engaged in complex relationships, such as the UN, the member states and
a women's and feminist movement which becomes the recognized protagonist
of these global processes.
We cannot summarize here the history of each conference (as well as
other fundamental international meetings that were held in those same
years) but thousands of activists were present to demonstrate their
presence, monitor the meetings, try to influence the positions of their
respective governments, put pressure on the United Nations. But, above
all, they gave shape to concrete places where requests could be made and
needs expressed, giving life to a plural subject in the making that was
not easy to manage.
The universal sisterhood, until then taken for granted by a good part of
Western feminism, on the common basis of gender, began to falter, since
the analyzes and themes brought by women from the Global South could not
lead to an alliance that preceded (and ignored) the reality of each one.
According to reports, accounts and testimonies of the time (1) , the
effective awareness of the different perspectives, the irreducibility of
positionings and the different political cultures began in Copenhagen in
1980 and continued in Nairobi in 1985.
As ManishaDesai (2) reminds us , the world women's conferences and the
meetings in parallel forums were essentially conflictual events that saw
activists from different countries (many did not define themselves as
feminists) challenging the concepts, demands and priorities of the women
of the North. Most white women, for example, did not want to address
issues defined as 'political', as they would have preferred to present
themselves as a solid and cohesive movement in the context described.
But, by digging into the documents, we discover how these requests were
vital, in a literal sense, for many of the women present. The issues
defined as political and therefore divisive were in fact those brought
forward by the South Africans and Palestinians who wanted the claims and
denunciations of the daily discrimination and violence in which they
lived to be explicit and shared, in the clear terms of apartheid and
colonial occupation. There were several witnesses of the time who at the
end of the conference in the Danish capital expressed fear of the
uselessness of these meetings or of the impossibility of arriving at a
form of mutual understanding, not to mention skepticism about being able
to influence government processes in light of the internal clashes
within activism itself.
The turning point was at the Nairobi conference in 1985, where the women
probably arrived with the desire to continue and find a form of action
and the possibility of alliances that held together the complexity in
which they found themselves. In the area dedicated to the parallel
Forum, a peace tent was also built where harsh discussions and
confrontations took place, a sort of space dedicated to the explicit
welcoming of inevitable conflicts.
The protagonists were certainly the activists from the countries of the
South of the world who arrived in Nairobi in large numbers (also thanks
to the fact that the conference venue was in an African capital) and the
many black feminists coming from the United States. It is they who,
through the presence of bodies, analyzes and political requests, create
a rupture, showing how gender can no longer be the only element that
defines women's lives and their subalternity within different
patriarchal systems. They do this by bringing out and naming other
social categories, such as class, "race" (i.e. racialisation ) , sexual
orientation, religion, etc., which define, through their intersection,
changing identities, oppression and the capacity for self-determination.
The differences between women, the different political perspectives and
the criticism of a substantial part of white feminism, also held
responsible for some forms of exercise of power and colonialism, are the
issues around which the conference moved.
It is on this occasion that transnational feminist networks (3) of Third
World women (4) were formed who, through this type of organisation,
began to define shared practices and common languages, giving a new
configuration to women's and feminist movements at international. One of
the landmark "manifestos" of the time, which actually preceded the
Nairobi Conference, begins with these words: «Through our analyzes and
activities, we are committed to developing alternative frameworks and
methods to achieve the goals of economic justice and social, of peace
for development free from all forms of gender, class, racial and
national oppression" (5) . Written by Gita Sen and Caren Grown, it is
the founding proclamation of the Dawn Network, a network that still
exists today. The questioning of a predominant feminism and that which
it wanted to be, the awareness that women's and feminist movements are
different and not always reconcilable, becomes a practice at the United
Nations meetings that allows for the possibility of reasoned, deliberate
and concrete alliances .
In essence, between the 1980 and 1985 conferences, through clashes,
discussions and recompositions, a feminism was redefined, from time to
time, which proposed an embodied and then theorized postcolonial and
intersectional perspective which, over time, was capable also to
influence institutional policies.
Today this complexity seems to be part of the present, in the current
and claimed need to talk about feminisms in the plural and in knowing
how to recognize them. But it is equally important to remember and tell
how the process was long and ignored for just as long. The dense
concepts that words like intersectionality and decoloniality bring with
them start from afar and it is not enough to use them as adjectives to
be aware of them or know how to act on them. It was difficult at the
time, and perhaps it is still difficult today, to abandon an often
Eurocentric outlook and have a broader perspective that becomes truly
global, in its ability to concretely measure itself with the challenges
of an effective decolonization of the gaze, of the theories and practices.
Note
1) R. Gaidzanwa et al ., Reflections on Forum '85 in Nairobi, Kenya:
Voices from the International Women's Studies Community , Signs, Vol.
11, No. 3 (Spring, 1986)
2) M. Desai, Transnational and Global Feminisms , in The Blackwell
Encyclopedia of Sociology, 2007, p.2
3) V. Moghadam, Transnational Feminist Networks: Collective Action in an
Era of Globalization , International Sociology 15 (1): 57-85, 2000
4) Common definition in the years that we are taking into consideration
and used by the women of the South of the world themselves, with the
explicit intention of provocative claim in the denunciation of the
subordination into which they were forced. See also the use of Third
World women in ChandraThalpadeMoanthy's works.
5) G. Sen, C. Grown, Development, Crises and Alternative Visions. Third
World Women'sPerspectives , MonthlyReview Press, 1987, p. 9
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