Human/Women’s Rights and Feminist Transversal Politics

Professor Nira Yuval-Davis

Since the 1990’s, and definitely since the 1994 UN conference on human rights in Vienna, much of global feminist activism has been constructed in the discourse of rights, under the slogan of ‘women’s rights are human rights’ (Bunch, 1990). This discourse of rights has enabled many local, as well as transnational women’s groups, to challenge existing customs, as well as legislation, which discriminates against women, all around the world. It also helped to transform much of feminist activism from ‘identity politics’ feminism into ‘transversal politics’, problematising women’s homogeneity and reinforcing feminist solidarity beyond borders and boundaries as well as simplistic cosmopolitan approach.

In the first part of this talk Professor Yuval-Davis will discuss this transition in feminist politics, including an exploration of the dialogical situated epistemology that underlies such politics. In the second part she will argue that in spite of the great advances made, contemporary transnational feminist politics are ridden with their own inherent problematics, partly common to those in feminist identity politics and partly due to some inherent tensions that relate to the construction of feminist politics as women’s/human rights politics.

Bio

Nira Yuval-Davis is an Israeli diasporic Jew and a Professor and Graduate Course Director in Gender, Sexualities and Ethnic Studies at the University of East London. She has been the President of the Research Committee '05 (on Racism, Nationalism and Ethnic Relations) of the International Sociological Association and one of the founder members of Women Against Fundamentalisms and the research network of Women In Militarized Conflict Zones. She is an elected member of the Academy of Learned Societies for the Social Sciences and was appointed to the 2008 UK Sociology RAE (Research Assessment Exercise) Panel.

Nira Yuval-Davis has written extensively on theoretical and empirical aspects of nationalism, racism, fundamentalism, citizenship and gender relations in Britain & Europe, Israel and other Settler Societies. Among her written and edited books are Woman - Nation - State (Macmillan, 1989); Racialized Boundaries (Routledge, 1992); Refusing Holy Orders: Women and Fundamentalism in Britain (Virago, 1992); The Gulf War and the New World Order (Zed Books 1992); Unsettling Settler Societies (Sage, 1995); Crossfires: Nationalism, Racism and Gender in Europe (Pluto, 1995); Women, Citizenship & Difference (Zed Books, 1999); Warning Signs of Fundamentalisms (WLUML, 2004) ; and The Situated Politics of Belonging (Sage, 2006) . Her book Gender and Nation (Sage, 1997) has been translated by now to seven different languages. She is currently working on a monograph for Sage on Nationalism and Belonging, as well as directing an ESRC research project on Identity, Performance and Social Action: The Use of Community Theatre Among Refugees.

Contact email: N.S.Al-Ali@soas.ac.uk