Scattered Hegemonies

Throughout the West, theory - in particular feminist theory - tends either to ignore difference altogether or to lapse into a kind of cultural relativism. Resisting these two moves, the authors here explore the possibilities of achieving feminist work across cultural divides. In doing so, they bring the issues of colonialism and post-colonialism into the typically aesthetic debates over postmodernism and the construction of culture; at the same time, they broaden these debates to include the normally excluded issue of feminist participation. Asking how ideas of postmodernism and post-colonialism are variously deployed by feminists and others in different locations allows the authors to trace the flow of information and theory in transnational cultural production. To this end, they pursue two lines of questioning: What kinds of feminist practices engender theories that resist of the question of modernism? And how do we understand the production and reception of diverse forms of feminism within a framework of transnational social/cultural/economic movements?