Transitions Environments Translations: Feminisms in International Politics

The essays in Transitions, Environments, Translations explore the varied meanings of feminism in different political, cultural, and historical contexts. They respond to the claim that feminism is Western in origin and universalist in theory, and to the assumption that feminist goals are self-evident and the same in all contexts.

Rather than assume that there is a blueprint by which to measure the strength or success of feminism in different parts of the world, these essays consider feminism to be a site of local, national and international conflict. They ask: What is at stake in various political efforts by women in different parts of the world? What meanings have women given to their efforts? What has been their relationship to feminism--as a concept and as an international movement? What happens when feminist ideas are translated from one language, one political context, to another?

Joan W. Scott is Professor of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and co-editor of Feminists Theorize the Political (Routledge 1992). Cora Kaplan is Professor of English at Southampton University and author of Sea Changes: Essays on Cultureand Feminism (1986). Debra Keates is a contributor to TheDictionary of Feminism and Psychoanalysis.