“Feminism and Postcolonialism: (En)gendering Encounters” by Swati Parashar: Summary and Critique

Intersection of Feminism and Postcolonialism

• Mutual Influence: Postcolonialism and feminism offer critical perspectives, each informing the other. Feminism pushes postcolonialism to challenge cultural nationalism, while postcolonialism helps feminism recognize diverse sites of oppression.
• Uneasy Alliance: Despite shared objectives, the relationship between these two frameworks remains uneasy. Postcolonialism tends to focus on anti-colonial nationalism, which often sidelines internal issues of gender hierarchy and injustice, while feminism may overlook the complex, intersectional oppressions of “third world women” (Chandra Talpade-Mohanty).
• Critique of Universalism: Both frameworks caution against universalizing experiences, particularly when it comes to women in postcolonial states, as it silences diverse voices and perpetuates discursive colonialism.

State Violence and Patriarchy

• Gendered Violence of the State: Feminists critique postcolonial states for their militarized and patriarchal structures. The state embodies masculine power and, in many cases, actively marginalizes women, embedding violence in legal and social institutions.
• State as Both Oppressor and Protector: The state is seen as both a source of oppression and a necessary institution for protecting rights and justice, particularly for marginalized women. Feminists call for accountability while acknowledging the state’s role in addressing deep-rooted inequalities.

Colonial and Postcolonial Violence

• Pervasiveness of Violence: Drawing from Fanon’s ideas, the article explores how colonial violence is embedded in postcolonial states, continuing to shape identities and social structures. The idea of violence as ‘ordinary’ and pervasive complicates feminist critiques of political violence.
• Feminist Dilemma on Violence: Feminists are caught between critiquing state violence and recognizing its necessity in certain contexts, such as in the fight for rights and liberation. The ethical questions surrounding violence, particularly its ‘redeeming’ potential as suggested by Fanon, remain unresolved.

Critique of Global Feminism

• Western Feminism and ‘Third World Women’: Western feminist perspectives often fail to account for the specific struggles of women in postcolonial states, reducing them to monolithic subjects. This critique is integral to the development of more inclusive feminist discourses.
• Intersection of Patriarchy and Imperialism: The global political economy continues to enforce gendered forms of labor, particularly in postcolonial states. Feminists explore how contemporary conflicts are shaped by both patriarchy and imperialist structures, reinforcing global inequalities.

Worldism and Syncretic Engagements

• Concept of Worldism: Agathangelou and Ling propose the idea of “worldism”—multiple, interacting worlds with syncretic engagements that promote empathy and accountability. This concept encourages a broader, more inclusive understanding of postcolonial and feminist challenges.

1. Postcolonial Theory

Contribution:

• The article expands postcolonial theory by highlighting the importance of gender within the postcolonial critique of the state, nationalism, and violence. It emphasizes how postcolonial discourses often marginalize women’s experiences and the role of gender in nationalist movements.
• Key Quotations:
  • “Postcolonialism offers feminism the conceptual tool box to see multiple sites of oppression and to reject universalisms around gendered experiences of both men and women.”
  • “Postcolonialism points out how exclusion and violence is embedded in the imaginary of the nation-state itself.”

2. Feminist Theory

Contribution:

• Parashar’s article advances feminist theory by exploring how patriarchal structures within postcolonial states perpetuate violence and exclusion. It critiques the universalisms in feminist thought, particularly the portrayal of “third world women” in Western feminist discourses.
• Key Quotations:
  • “Feminists on the other hand collide with postcolonials on the understandings of the ‘third world women’ and the overruling of gender hierarchies in racialised spaces.”
  • “Feminists have cautiously argued that while the state’s policies can lead to social inequalities and the undermining of gender justice and rights, it is also the only hope for those who will always be excluded and marginalised in any identity politics.”

3. Intersectionality

Contribution:

• The article engages with the concept of intersectionality, showing how postcolonial states enforce multiple forms of oppression (race, gender, class). It critiques the tendency of both postcolonial and feminist theories to generalize or overlook intersectional experiences, particularly of women in the Global South.
• Key Quotations:
  • “Difference is not just between the West and non-West but within these geographies and temporalities as well and any universalism is discursive violence that writes out histories and mutes voices.”
  • “The article focuses on how gender shapes revolution, war, asylum, biopolitics, religion and sovereignty and how the postcolonial state is gendered in its constitution and practices.”

4. Cultural Studies

Contribution:

• Parashar adds to cultural studies by examining how cultural nationalism within postcolonial states is gendered. She explores how national identity is imposed on women, often using them as symbols in cultural and political conflicts.
• Key Quotations:
  • “National identity is reflected in its gendered impositions on women. Nira Yuval-Davis demonstrates how ‘deveiling women in Ataturk’s revolution in Turkey…was as important as veiling them by the Muslim fundamentalists’.”

5. Critical Theory

Contribution:

• The article contributes to critical theory by interrogating how state structures of power, particularly in postcolonial contexts, are inherently violent and patriarchal. It critiques both the state and non-state actors for perpetuating gender-based violence.
• Key Quotations:
  • “For feminists the recognition that states are patriarchal, militarised, violent, embody a masculine identity and are inherently exclusionary is critical to a gendered understanding of political violence.”

6. Global Feminism

Contribution:

• Parashar challenges global feminism’s monolithic representations of women from the Global South, arguing that such discourses often replicate colonial power dynamics. The article calls for more nuanced and context-specific understandings of women’s oppression and agency in postcolonial contexts.
• Key Quotations:
  • “The absence of the acknowledgment of ‘difference’ in feminist understandings of global oppressions of women was brought to the fore by Chandra Talpade-Mohanty as she persuasively drew attention to discursive colonialism in the production of the ‘Third World Woman’.”

7. Violence and Power Theories (Fanon’s Influence)

Contribution:

• The article engages with Frantz Fanon’s theories on violence and power in colonial and postcolonial contexts. It examines how violence, far from being an aberration, is central to the formation of both colonial and postcolonial states, and how feminist theory can intersect with these ideas.
• Key Quotations:
  • “Fanon claims at the outset that ‘national liberation, resistance or restoration of nationhood to the people is always a violent phenomenon’. The cathartic value of violence is realised in the colonial system.”
  • “Feminists and postcolonials alike are troubled by the pervasiveness of violence in its ‘everydayness,’ as Veena Das notes.”

8. Worldism (Agathangelou and Ling)

Contribution:

• The concept of “worldism,” introduced by Agathangelou and Ling, is explored as a theoretical framework that allows for multiple ways of knowing and being. Parashar uses this concept to encourage the intersection of feminism and postcolonialism in creating syncretic engagements and trans-subjectivities.
• Key Quotations:
  • “Worldism as an analytical output is made possible by postcolonialism and feminism interacting closely to enrich epistemic enquiry and ontological frameworks.”
  • “World politics as a site of multiple worlds … the various and contending ways of being, knowing and relating.”

9. Biopolitics

Contribution:

• The article touches on the concept of biopolitics, especially in discussions of gendered bodies in conflict zones and asylum regimes. It critiques the ways in which postcolonial states exert control over women’s bodies and identities through political and social violence.
• Key Quotations:
  • “The rightness of the ‘war on terror’ justified by evoking fear and enforced through colonial methods of surveillance, torture, and repression in counter-terrorism measures, reproduces colonial strategies of governance.”