Transnational Feminist Crossings: On Neoliberalism and Radical Critique

• Published in: Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society Vol. 38; no. 4; pp. 967 - 991
• Main Author: Mohanty, Chandra Talpade
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chicago University of Chicago Press 01-06-2013; University of Chicago, acting through its Press
• Subjects: Borders; Decolonization; Economic liberalism; Epistemology; Feminism; Feminist Theory; Geography; Geopolitics; Hegemony; Knowledge; Knowledge Economy; Mexico; National security; Neoliberalism; Political extremism; Political representation; Postfeminism; Postmodern feminism; Social activism; Social Movements; Solidarity; Translation; Transnationalism; Mexico; Sweden; Palestine (pre-1948); United States > US
• ISSN: 0097-9740; 1545-6943
• DOI: 10.1086/669576

This essay grows out of a presentation on a panel called “Lost in Translation” at the Critical Race Studies conference in 2010. It is a reflection on the neoliberal knowledge economy, the traffic in antiracist feminist theory, and the way my work has been read (lost or found in translation) and has crossed geopolitical and racial/cultural borders. The essay comments as well on the development of my intellectual project in relation to my location in the US academy and the intellectual and political communities that have made the work possible. The larger frame I seek to examine using responses to my work in three sites—Sweden, Mexico, and Palestine—is the way feminist, postcolonial, and antiracist theory emerges from a particular geopolitical, intellectual space; the way it enacts crossings; and the way it is trafficked, consumed, and understood in different geographies. Given the global and domestic shifts in social movements and transnational feminist scholarly projects over the past three decades, my major concern pertains to the depoliticization of antiracist feminist/women-of-color/transnational feminist intellectual projects in neoliberal, national-security-driven geopolitical landscapes.