Companion To Feminist Studies - 2020 - Naples - Postcolonial Feminism

9
Postcolonial Feminism
Umme Al‐wazedi
If we don’t tell our stories, hailstones will continue to fall on our heads
Thrown by fathers for the children to see – for we are not good women
Thrown by Imams, by a judge’s decree – for we are not good wives
Thrown by other women in our husbands’ lives
As they come in the morning cradling his children
Calling us witch, barren, bitch
And we find something to tie the chest with;
Challenging words to hurl back in battle,
And partners to hold us anyway,
Through the things we struggle against.
Abena P.A. Busia, (2010)
Introduction
The critical perspective of postcolonial feminism addresses inequalities related to

hegemonic power‐relations by examining the relationship between the colonizer and
the colonized, as well as critiquing postcolonial gender roles. Postcolonial feminism
not only focuses on patriarchy as a source of oppression, but also examines how
social inequalities are located in and constructed by a political, historical, cultural,
and economic context (Mohanty et al. 1991, Quayson 2000). Postcolonial feminism
emerged as a reaction to the early proponents of postcolonial theory, men who were
occupied with nation‐building after empire and colonialism had destroyed indige-
nous people’s history. Reina Lewis and Sara Mills, in their influential book Feminist
Postcolonial Theory: A Reader (2003), argue that it was the feminist intervention in
mainstream postcolonial theory that
Companion to Feminist Studies, First Edition. Edited by Nancy A. Naples.

© 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
10.1002/9781119314967.ch9, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781119314967.ch9, Wiley Online Library on [31/05/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
156 Umme Al‐wazedi
led to an examination of the process whereby femininity and female stereotyping is
entangled with the process of constructing a nationalist anti‐colonial symbolism, the
female signifying the pre‐colonial, the traditional, and the untouched domestic space.
(2003, p. 3)
Thus, postcolonial feminist theory not only criticizes colonial powers, but also
criticizes the hegemonic power established by indigenous men after the Empire. For
example, Chinua Achebe asserted the need to locate one’s own history by describing
precolonial Igbo society in Things Fall Apart (1958), and Salman Rushdie por-
trayed the partition of British India into two countries, Pakistan and India, in his
Midnight’s Children (1981). Conversely, Indian woman writer Bapsi Sidhwa repre-
sented partition in Cracking India through the portrayal of the tragedy of the
Aya – the brutal sexual assaults that were carried on in the name of creating two
independent countries. With Cracking India (1988), we see the emergence of post-
colonial feminist texts. Similarly, Senegalese novelist‐educator Mariam Bâ portrays
the tremendous negative effect polygamy has on the women of Senegal in So Long
a Letter (1979). She helps readers understand why many women decide to stay in
polygamous relationships, as gender and economic inequity influences their
decision. Bâ was answering to the stereotyping of Senegalese women. Postcolonial
feminist theory also studies women’s lives by examining the intersectionality of
gender, class, race, caste and religion, and sexuality. In their editorial to the 1995
special issue of Signs entitled “Postcolonial, Emergent, and Indigenous Feminisms,”
Joanna O’Connell et al. argue:
the “post” in the term should not be understood as meaning the end or death of coloni-
zation. On the contrary, this time of struggle for people all over the world, a moment
that the academic world is attempting to define, is a process in the decolonizing space
of the millennium rather than a conclusive event. (p. 789)
This chapter argues, in the words of Quayson, that postcolonial feminist the-
ory dismantles “the discursive representation” – the “metaphors, tropes, and
concepts” used to “project an image of some person or persons” (2000, p. 104).
It is engaged in postcolonial critique, the discussion of hegemonic Western fem-
inism’s wish to speak for, about and against oppression on behalf of “third
world women,” the analysis of the impact of capitalism and globalization, and
cross‐border displacements. In addition, this chapter, to borrow the words of
O’Connell and her coauthors, attempts “to include the perspectives of multiple
feminisms that help to represent dynamic and constructive ways of thinking,
being, and acting for women caught in the tensions of this postcolonial era”
(O’Connell et al. 1995, p. 789). This chapter lays out the arguments revolving
around the British colonial discourse in representing non‐Western women, par-
ticularly the issue of satihood in India. The chapter further sets out the concept
of the Third World Women (in India and Africa) through a few key postcolonial
feminist thinkers and their theories. It also discusses in brief the development of
postcolonial sexualities, examines Islamic and Muslim feminism, and analyzes
some new directions in postcolonial feminist theory such as the relationship
between postcolonial feminism and intersectional feminist theory, postcolonial
Postcolonial Feminism 157
feminism and disability studies, and the rise of activism for social justice. While
doing so, the chapter gives examples of films and literature that can be used to
teach postcolonial feminist theory. The chapter also provides the future direc-
tion of this theory with the growing concerns of racism and homophobia toward
diasporic peoples.
Rewriting the Colonial Discourse of Satihood
At the center of postcolonial studies is the reclaiming of precolonial history and

analysis of colonial discourses created by the Western empire. In India, discourses of
decolonization center on satihood, or widow immolation. The term sati refers to the
Hindu woman who immolates herself on the pyre of her dead husband. The most
notable and critiqued work on the presentation of the sati is the British historian
Edward Thomson’s book Suttee published in 1928. Lata Mani, in her phenomenal
1990 study, discusses the debates surrounding satihood and colonial masculinity. She
focuses on satihood and the responses it elicited from colonial powers, as well as
from indigenous elites. She argues,
By colonial discourse I mean a mode of understanding Indian society that emerged

alongside of colonial rule and over time was shared to a greater or lesser extent by offi-
cials, missionaries and indigenous elites. (1990, p. 90)
Mani finds that women were either considered a victim or a heroine, but never a
subject in their own action. Colonial officers and missionaries created a mystical fic-
tion around the story of the sati by portraying sati as a dutiful act of religious prefer-
ence. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak in her essay, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” (1985)
writes “The abolition of this rite by the British has been generally understood as a
case of ‘White men saving brown women from brown men’” (p. 93). Even the indig-
enous abolitionists didn’t mention cruelty as the reason for opposing this practice as
they wanted to echo “the nostalgia for lost origins: ‘The women actually wanted to
die’” (Spivak, 1985, p. 93). Mani argues that the colonial and the indigenous dis-
courses considered women to be merely the carriers of tradition. Thus, the British
imperial project helped to reconstruct what pure and native Indian culture looked
like. The indigenous elites held the view that women who committed sati were hero-
ines who were holding up the Hindu religion at point in historical moment when
foreigners were ruling their land. Mani argues,
Officials persisted in describing as victims, even women who resisted attempts to force
them unto the pyre. The annual reports of sati include many instances of women being
coerced. Representations of such incidents, however, do not stress the resistance of wid-
ows but the barbarity of Hindu males in their coercion. The widow thus nowhere
appears as a subject. If she conceded, she was considered victimized by religion.
(Mani 1990, p. 97)
These women were either “superslave or superhuman” and were seen solely as
victims.
Like Mani, Rajeshwari Sunder Rajan also talks about the debate surrounding the
actual reasons for satihood in her essay “The Subject of Sati: Pain and Death in the
Contemporary Discourse on Sati,” (1993). She argues that “Religious sanction, political
complicity and economic benefits have combined to encourage a cult of sati in a climate
of overall oppression of women” (1993, p. 17). Both Mani and Sundar Rajan concede
that tradition plays a role in the patriarchal oppression of women and conclude that
traditions are manipulated by different power groups. It is crucial to remember what
Spivak writes about the position of the women: “Between patriarchy and imperialism,
subject‐constitution and object‐formation, the figure of the woman disappears, not into
a pristine nothingness, but into a violent shuttling which is the displaced figuration of
the ‘third‐world woman’ caught between tradition and modernization” (1985, p. 102).
Ania Loomba and Ritty A. Lukose, while explaining the design of their edited
volume South Asian Feminisms (2012), have also referred to “the historical recovery
of the precolonial and colonial past” (p. 3). In addition, their focus is on “the post-
colonial formation of the nation‐state” (p. 3) and the creation of other marginalities,
and thus contributes to the examination of women as not subjects of their discourse.
They focus on what it means to be Indian and how that category excludes other
people. They mark this exclusion as the discontent of the nation‐state. While refer-
ring to Flavia Agnes’s essay in their collection, Loomba and Lukose point out,
to assert its difference from the West, and “in order to establish [its] ‘Indianness,’” the
feminist movement “relied heavily on Hindu iconography and Sanskrit idioms denoting
the female power, thus inadvertently strengthening the communal ideology [for which]
Indian, Hindu and Sanskrit are synonymous.” (2012, p. 9)
Agnes points out that such communalism can result in the “the continued projec-
tion of Muslims, Christians, Dalits, and others as simply marginalized objects,” but
“as subjects, they can tell stories that may surprise feminists” (2012, p. 9).
The Critique of Third World Women
The purpose of this section is to lay out the genealogy of theories revolving around
the concept of the Third World Women explained by prominent postcolonial femi-
nists. The section highlights the argument about the Western feminists’ (often cited
as imperialist feminists) creation of the dominant discourse wherein non‐Western
women are objectified and presented as “the Other” and “the marginalized,” as well
as the response to such presentation. Spivak in her book A Critique of Postcolonial
Reason (1999) argues that imperial feminists have often taken up the “subject‐
constituting project” while discussing nineteenth‐century British writer Charlotte
Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre and the rewriting of that same novel by the Caribbean
writer Jean Rhys, entitled Wild Sargasso Sea (1999, p. 125). Spivak argues that
Western feminists have often taken it upon themselves to meditate on issues of the
(third) world woman, and the notion of marginality has helped create the canons of
Western culture while enhancing the East vs. West binaries and cultural hierarchies.
Similarly, Sara Suleri in her book The Rhetoric of English India (1992) critiques the
position of Western feminism and its use of “marginality.”
However, the most significant debate about the East vs. West binaries and cultural
hierarchies in postcolonial feminist theory surrounds the figure of the “Third World
woman” and the positionality of First World (Western) women. Chandra Talpade
Mohanty begins her influential essay “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship
and Colonial Discourses” (1991) by critiquing Western liberal feminist scholarship
for its universalizing tendencies and producing “the ‘third world woman’ as a singu-
lar monolithic subject” (1991, p. 51). She dismantles the five specific ways in which
Western feminist discourse presents Third World women as a “homogenous, power-
less group often located as implicit victims of particular socioeconomic systems”
(1991, p. 57). She challenges the objectification of Third World women in the writ-
ings of white women’s texts, in which the women are portrayed as “victims” of dif-
ferent violence (male, colonial process, Arab familial system, economic development
process, and the Islamic code) (1991, p. 57). She contends that these representations
are “based on a generalized notion of their subordination,” which leads to cultural
reductionism (1991, pp. 57, 66). She argues that such analysis ignores social class
and ethnic identities. Mohanty offers an example of how to pay attention to class
and ethnicity: she cites the 1982 study of Maria Mies, who analyzes the lace‐makers
of Narsapur, India. Mies analyzes the levels of exploitation in the lace industry and
the effect it has on its production. These women who make the laces are also seen
just as “non‐working house wives” (p. 65). Mies points out that there are multiple
layers of facts that influence the women in the lace factory and that one cannot gen-
eralize this group of women based on one factor only. For example, there are differ-
ences between the lives of these women. Both the lace exporters and the community
maintained strict purdah rules, which made it difficult for them to go out and work.
Therefore, we can see that these women have been talking about the problem of
purdah. Thus, Mohanty concludes that Mies’ study goes beyond generalization as
she pays attention to the “intricacies and the effects of particular power networks,”
and “how this particular group of women is situated at the center of a hegemonic,
exploitative world market” (1991, p. 65). Thus, woman’s agency can’t be explained
through a monolithic discourse as we see that capital centrism and power essential-
ism work together to diminish women’s agency.
Postcolonial Sexualities
This section talks about postcolonial sexualities as constructed by the binaries set
by colonialism – East/West and homosexual/heterosexual. The movements of
India’s sexual minorities have had a long history of their own as the laws have
been influenced by the legacies of colonialism. It was Lord Macaulay, the President
of the Indian Law Commission, in 1860, who authored Section 377 of the Indian
Penal Code, as part of Britain’s efforts to impose Victorian values on British India.
The study of these binaries confirms that the study of postcolonial sexualities is
linked to the more difficult task of specifying how sexuality intersects and inter-
acts with other systems of oppression. There are groundbreaking works by writ-
ers such as Ruth Venita, Tejaswini Niranjana, and many others. These writers
have debated about the ways in which the colonial and/or nationalist state has
used gender and sexuality to its advantage. This section lays out two specific
arguments about the debate surrounding postcolonial sexualities in postcolonial
feminism – Indian Penal Code 377 and the problem of applying Western queer
theory to Indian sexuality.
There have always been references to same‐sex love in Hinduism; there are
centuries‐old Hindu temples that depict erotic encounters between members of
the same sex. There are other myths that talk about transgender people.
Section 377 has had enormous negative effect on many people’s life in India as
Geetanjali Misra argues, “although few cases against consenting adults have
gone to trial, the existence of Section 377, and the threat of possible arrest, have
allowed the authorities to discriminate against homosexuals and organisations
working with them” (2009, p. 21). The fight for the repeal of Section 377 began
in 1994 with ABVA, a Delhi‐based non‐governmental organization, which filed
the repeal and claimed it violated the constitutional rights to privacy. However,
ABVA was not successful. In 2001 the Naz Foundation India Trust, based in
Delhi, joined the Lawyers Collective, a legal aid organization working for the
rights of people affected by HIV and AIDS, and petitioned so that the Delhi High
Court doesn’t repeal Section 377 “as a whole, but to read it down to exclude
private consensual sex between adults” (Misra 2009, p. 23). Ruth Vanita in her
essay “Lesbian Studies and Activism in India” (2007) talks about public debates
and writings about lesbianism, and the history of activism around lesbian issues
in twentieth‐century India.
Inderpal Grewal and Caren Kaplan argue that “the sexual politics that is at once
national, regional, local, even ‘cross‐cultural’, and hybrid” is a complex terrain, par-
ticularly when it comes to the discussion of postcolonial sexualities and sexualities
in South Asian Diaspora (2001, p. 663). Gayatri Gopinath in her Impossible Desires:
Queer Diasporas and South Asian Public Cultures defines diaspora as a term that
“describes the dispersal and movement of populations from one particular national
of geographic location to the other disparate sites” (2005, p. 6). She argues for a
theoretical model to articulate non‐Western queer experience, which often is influ-
enced by the framework of Western queer theory. So, a queer South Asian diaspora
critiques modernity and the “various narratives of modernity and progress”
(Gopinath 2005, p. 12). Gopinath writes,
A queer South Asian diasporic geography of desire and pleasure stages this critique by
rewriting colonial construction of “Third World” sexualities as anterior, premodern,
and in need of Western political development – constructions that are recirculated by
contemporary gay and lesbian transnational politics. (2005, p. 12)
In response to some of the conditions that Gopinath identified, Ashwini

Sukthankar suggests that queer and feminist activists should work together to pro-
mote advocacy and movement building (2012, p. 324). LGBTQIA+ groups have
prioritized “organizing outside of identity politics – arguing that campaigns against
Section 377 must go beyond ‘gay dignity’ or ‘gay rights’ by shaping common causes
with other potential plaintiffs” (2012, p. 324). India’s transgender community is
equally at the forefront of this kind of activism as well. The LGBTQIA+ and the
transgender community are working to fight for their own rights as well as against
human rights violations.
African Feminism and Africana Womanism
Like Indian postcolonial feminist thinkers, African feminists and writers believe that
colonialism reinforced the inequalities and limitations that existed in many tradi-
tional African societies and that continue to exist now. Postcolonial African feminism
examines national liberation and socialist reconstruction by asserting that African
women’s lives are diverse and dependent on where they live. Carol Boyce Davis and
Anne Adams Graves describe African feminism in Ngambika: Studies of Women in
African Literature (1986); they call for more research on powerful historical figures
who ruled during the precolonial period and who fought against British, Belgium, and
French colonization. Davis and Adams delineate African feminism into seven subsec-
tions: (i) that women’s struggle is due to European exploitation, (ii) that certain “ineq-
uities and limitations” exist in traditional societies, (iii) that there were powerful
women leaders and warriors in precolonial times, (iv) that it respects traditional
motherhood but questions traditional favoring of sons, (v) women’s self‐reliance, (vi)
it has to look “objectively” at women’s situation as these societies have gone through
wars of national liberation and socialist reconstruction, (vii) African women are tell-
ing their own stories (1986, pp. 8–10). These critics believe that Western feminists use
certain heterogeneous conditions to portray Third World women as oppressed and
backwards, and the project of African feminists is not to reaffirm these qualities.
Mariama Bâ, conscious of her role as a writer and as an African woman writing
within and against established tradition, writes,
The woman writer in Africa has a special task. She has to present the position of women
in all its aspects … As a woman we must overthrow the status quo which harms us and
we must no longer submit to it …We no longer accept the nostalgic praise to the African
Mother who, in his anxiety, man confuses with Mother Africa. Within African litera-
ture, room must be made for women…, room we will fight for with all our might.
(Stratton 1994, p. 55)
This statement is directed toward Negritude, “a philosophical concept noted for

its thematic concept of Mother Africa and an idealized African womanhood in its
literary quest for an African political identity” (Ajayi 1997). Leopold Sedar Senghor
portrayed this idealized African woman in his mid‐twentieth century poem “Black
Women.” Another African novelist, Miriam Tlai, argues that the problem of seeing
African women as Mother Africa is that men want to “put you on a pedestal, because
then they want you to stay there forever without asking your opinion – and [they
are] unhappy if you want to come down as an equal human being” (Ajayi 1997).
While discussing African feminism as part of postcolonial feminism, one needs to
focus on Africana Womanism as well. Clenora Hudson‐Weems in her book Africana
Womanism: Reclaiming Ourselves (1994), while pointing out that Africana Womanism
is not similar to Black feminism or African feminism, or Alice Walker’s womanism
(which celebrates womanhood and is all‐inclusive). Hudson‐Weems writes.
Africana Womanism is an ideology created and designed for all women of African
descent. It is grounded in African culture, and therefore, it necessarily focuses on the
unique experiences, struggles, needs, and desires of Africana women. (1994, p. 24)
Hudson‐Weems cites Mariama Bâ’s So Long a Letter as one of the five Africana
Womanist novels. One of the striking characteristics of Africana Womanist novelists
is that their female characters search for wholeness; sometimes, they work side‐by‐
side with the male counterparts, and other times they strive to take care of them-
selves and aim not to be scapegoats of their male companions. If it becomes necessary
for the female characters to give up their male companions to preserve their own
self‐esteem, they do that as well (Hudson‐Weems 1994, p. 78).
While analyzing the presentation of polygamy in Bâ’s So Long a Letter in her
book The Politics of (M)othering; Womanhood, Identity, and Resistance in African
Literature (1997), Obioma Nnaemeka points to the media’s role, particularly
American media, in presenting the difference between the Western and African ways
of living in a polygamous set‐up. While critiquing Ross Laver and Paula Kaihla’s
(1995) presentation of the practice of polygamy in the households of Alex Joseph, an
American polygamist and founder of the Confederate Nations of Israel, living in Big
Water, Utah, Nnaemeka writes that the reporters “did not speak for the Josephs.”
These women were noted as “well adjusted” women who
are capable of making personal decisions and choices, talked with them, and walked
away convinced that the “living arrangements works.” On the contrary, on the narra-
tion of African traditional cultures and the ways in which they are “oppressive” for
women, African women are not accorded the same respect and subjectivity as Alex
Joseph’s wives; African women are spoken for, about, and against. (1997, 166–167)
This culture of speaking for and about African women’s issues can also be seen
in areas such as the representations of AIDS‐infected women, fistula, and female
genital cutting.
Muslim and Islamic Feminism as Part of Postcolonial Feminism
This section critiques the discourse categories found in most postcolonial antholo-
gies. The Muslim world has always been portrayed through the colonial harem, the
veil, and the figure of the oppressed Muslim woman. Muslim feminists have been
talking about feminism for several generations, particularly those from the Middle
East and sub‐Saharan Africa. Mallek Alloula’s The Colonial Harem (1981) critiques
the French colonial exploitation of Algerian women and Asia Djebar’s Fantasia
(1985) provides a fantastic example of a feminist text that expresses the experiences
of marginalized women. The more recent postcolonial feminist analysis from the
Middle East and sub‐Saharan Africa often revolves around the argument of the veil
and the Quranic scriptures, which have given birth to two types of feminisms – Islamic
and Muslim.
Many feminist scholars of Islam feel that Islamic feminism is just the opposite of
Islamic patriarchy – one substituting for the other – and these scholars reject the pos-
sibility of any coexistence between Islam and feminism. Faegheh Moghissi argues,
“Hostility towards feminism and feminist demands is inherent in divine laws, and
women’s liberation in Islamic societies must therefore start with de‐Islamization of
every aspect of life” (1999, p. 134). Others see Islamic feminism as “a feminism true
to its society’s traditions” and “a resistance to cultural conversion” (Moghissi 1999,
p. 134). Some critics believe that feminism within an Islamic framework can only
work within the women’s movement. Yet it becomes problematic when it is pro-
claimed that Islamic feminism is the only banner under which women can fight for
justice. Such faith‐based feminists, as Nayereh Tohidi argues, “will not be much dif-
ferent from religious fundamentalists if they do not respect the freedom of choice
and diversity and if they try to impose their version of feminism on secular, lay, and
atheist feminists” (2007, p. 114); Afiya Shehrbanu Zia calls it “a political nunnery”
(2009, p. 15).
Critics such as Tohidi believe alternately in a Muslim feminism that is a negotia-
tion with modernity and “an attempt to ‘nativize’ or legitimize feminist demands in
order to avoid being cast as a Western import” (2007, p. 107). She contends that
Muslim feminism is “a relatively new, still fluid, undefined, more contested, and
more politically charged trend” (2007, p. 106). She defines Muslim feminism as
one of the ways or discourses created or adopted by certain strata of women (middle‐
class, urbanized, and educated) in predominantly Muslim societies or Muslim diaspora
communities in response to three interrelated sets of domestic, national, and global
pressures of new realities. (2007, p. 106)
Understood in this manner, Muslim feminism offers a mechanism through which

to resist and to challenge the sexist nature of ongoing identity politics, particularly
Islamism.
The veil’s ancient and modern history, and its contemporary resurgence, is an
important subject for those posing new questions about women, Islam, and the rep-
resentation of women in literature, film, television, and fine arts. In Europe and the
US, the veil is often presented through errors of conceptualizations. The media seem
to be obsessed with the role of the veil, either condemning the veil or valorizing it.
For example, at a recent New York fashion show, collections by Muslim designer
Anniesa Hasibuan received criticism from both conservative and liberal Muslims.
Discussions about the veil tend to run along essentialist and ahistorical lines, associ-
ating Islam with the ideology of shame and honor. For example, Lila Abu‐Lughad
draws our attention to Germany’s International Human Rights ad campaign, which
says, “Oppressed women are easily overlooked. Please support us in the fight for
their rights,” beneath a photo of a veiled woman sitting near some trash bags (2013,
p. 9). The figure of the veiled woman functions as a placeholder for victimhood. The
veiled Muslim women are often constructed as objects of desire, sensual harem girls,
and backward victims of their backward cultures. Muslim feminists such as Leila
Ahmed and Saba Mahmood have worked to dispel the tropes of the exoticization
and fetishization of the veil.
Europe’s biggest refugee crisis since World War II and the fear of Islam and of
Muslims as terrorists have heightened the controversy of the veil. In France, women
and Islam – the veil in particular – have been highly politicized. In Denmark, the veil
is associated with Muslim women as marginalized and subjugated victims. In South
Asia, particularly in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, the veiled Muslim woman
represents a controversial and questionable position in the construction of the
nation‐state.
Postcolonial Feminism and the Politics of Intersectionality
Haida Safia Mirza believes women of color across the globe should be engaged in
the “anti‐racist, anti‐sexist, postcolonial struggle for an equitable and socially just
world” yet she addresses a troubling question:
Can we, as women of colour, claim that black and postcolonial feminisms – a conscious,
meaningful act of political self‐identification – still bind us in our different locations
and seemingly fragmented struggles in the global twenty‐first century? (2009, p. 2)
This question is central to concerns of representing global women. Similarly,

Bandana Purkayastha and Susan Standford Friedman have argued that
“Intersectionality is a key concept in locational feminist theory that emphasizes the
differences among women resulting from the interactions of multiple systems of
oppression” (2012, p. 101). In sketching out articulations of feminist intersectional-
ity on a global scale, Chandra Talpade Mohanty’s work must be acknowledged, as
she explored “how aspects of identity and social relations are shaped by the simulta-
neous operation of multiple systems of power” (Dill and Kohlman 2012, p. 89). On
one hand, while tracing feminist intersectionality and religion, Friedman writes:
Influenced by such feminist theorists as Audre Lorde, Barbara Smith, the Combahee
River Collectives, and June Jordan, U.S. feminist theory by the 1980s had developed
concepts of multiple oppression, locationality, and positionality to account for the dif-
ferences among women produced by the intersection of different structures of oppres-
sion. (2015, p. 103)
On the other hand, Purkayastha, while giving credit to critics such as Patricia Hill
Collins and Kimberlé Crenshaw, in her “Intersectionality in a Transnational World,”
argues “our conceptualization of intersectionality – including the expanded version
race/class/gender/age/ability/sexuality/ethnicity/nation” changes in transnational
space (2012, p. 114). She gives an example that focused on a Ugandan Black immi-
grant and a Ugandan Indian immigrant in the United States. The Ugandan Black
immigrant woman is likely to face racism in the US because she presents as Black,
whereas the Indian immigrant woman may face racism that is different, like the rac-
ism and xenophobia faced by Muslims. However, if they both went back to Uganda,
the Ugandan Black woman is likely to be privileged in a Black majority country,
whereas the Indian woman would be privileged if they moved to India. Purakaystha
also argues that religion is being used to create racial profiles within nations and
across nations; in her example, the religion is Islam. She points out that surveillances
keep check on the travels of Muslims from one country to another. In this way,
nation‐states take part in the “process of marketing religion” in the service of racism.
These religion‐based forms of racialization must be taken into consideration
when theorizing or exploring Muslim women’s agency, particularly in the diaspora.
Religion is often a site of complex negotiations unexplained by a binarist model of
oppression/resistance. In particular, the spiritual, psychological, and bodily dimen-
sions of religious belief, practice, and communal belonging are significantly different
from – though certainly entangled with – other constituents of identity such as race,
class, sexuality, or national origin. Investigation of these axes of power in an inter-
sectional analysis is important in the postcolonial and diasporic context (Freidman
2015, p. 105).
Postcolonial Feminism and Disability Studies
Recent research has extended postcolonial feminism to where it intersects with post-
colonial disability studies. As more autobiographies and works of fiction are emerg-
ing from postcolonial spaces, it is important to position disability studies and
postcolonial feminist studies together in conversation. Engagement with disability in
postcolonial studies had been limited to the understanding and presentation of the
female body and its relationship to nationhood; the disabled female body (adult or
child) has been compared to the broken status of the nation.
However, there has been an increase of fiction in South Asia and its diaspora in
which writers are constructing new modes of narrative to speak of female physical
illness, how women are able to resist social constructs of disability, and how women
begin to narrate their own bodies for themselves. Authors often focus on the female
characters’ sexuality, thus also focusing on the “veil of silence” surrounding women’s
illness or disability. Disability plays a pivotal role in shaping a woman’s identity.
Many South Asian and diasporic writers in the twentieth century analyze the ways
disability plays a role in the construction of a complex feminine subjectivity. The
analytical scope of postcolonial disability studies using intersectionality among class,
gender, patriarchy, sexuality, and disability is broad. Postcolonial feminist disability
theory includes an examination of lived experiences, specifically how a disabled
woman experiences her disability, how members of her society perceive her, and how
these realities impact her sense of identity.
Claire Barker’s focus on postcolonial feminist disability studies is concerned with
allegory and the formation of the nation‐state. Barker sees Lenny’s polio in Bapsi
Sidhwa’s Cracking India as an allegory of the country – an India that is crippled. G.
Thomas Couser notes the importance of life narratives when it comes to understand-
ing disability studies. He talks about disability autobiography because these narra-
tives should be seen not as “a spontaneous ‘self‐expression’ but as a response – indeed
a retort to the traditional misrepresentation of disability” (2013, p. 457). Thus, the
postcolonial disability studies broaden the canon, by drawing in nonfiction narra-
tives – where authors aren’t intentionally using disability for allegorical or meta-
phorical purposes.
Postcolonial Feminism and Grassroots Activism
In South Asian Feminisms, Loomba and Lukose notes: “new forms of feminist activ-
ism have also sprung up, such as those centering on sex work and sexual equality,
against militarism, and against oppressive forms of globalized labor” (Loomba and
Lukose 2012, p. 2). With the rise of the Gulabi Gang and Muslim grassroots workers
such as Sharifa Khanam in India, there is a need for postcolonial feminism to relate
and connect to this kind of feminist and grassroots activism. Atreyee Sen argues that
the Gulabi Gang’s “gamut of actions (and not just violent vigilantism) underline the
long‐term, collective vision of the rural women to position and reposition themselves
between various discourses of justice, and subsequently remain alive in public mem-
ory” (Sen 2012, n.p.). The Gulabi Gang is a women’s movement formed in 2006 by
Sampat Pal Devi in the Banda District of Uttar Pradesh in Northern India. This
region is one of the poorest districts in the country and is marked by a deeply patri-
archal culture, rigid caste divisions, female illiteracy, domestic violence, child labour,
child marriages and dowry demands. The women’s group is popularly known as
Gulabi, or “Pink,” Gang because the members wear bright pink saris and wield bam-
boo sticks. Sampat says, “We are not a gang in the usual sense of the term, we are a
gang for justice.” The Gulabi Gang was initially intended to punish oppressive hus-
bands, fathers, and brothers, as well as to combat domestic violence and desertion.
The members of the gang would first try to have respectful dialogues with the male
offenders. The serious violators were punished through public shame. Often, the
members also threatened the men with their lathis. Sampat recalls in the documen-
tary that she once beat a policeman with her lathi. An example of solving a problem
through public shaming was when she was handling the case of a woman who was
being repeatedly sexually assaulted by her father‐in‐law while her husband was
working in the town. Sampat approached the father‐in‐law by bringing with her a
group of women talking very loudly, so that the nearby neighbors could hear.
Ultimately, they gathered around the household. She was able to solve this problem
by reuniting the woman with her husband, and she threatened the father‐in‐law by
saying that the next time she was there, he would be eating rice in the jail. Sen com-
ments that the need to focus on the study of the Gulabi Gang is important because
“they are a testament to the power of informal women’s collectives to implement
change without elite intervention and leadership” (2012).
Just as the Gulabi Gang is working to eliminate women’s oppression in rural
areas, Muslim women’s organizations in India are using the local grassroots activism
to set nationwide agendas. Groups such as Awaaz‐i‐Niswan, All India Muslim
Women’s Rights Network, and Women’s Research and Action Group are working to
help Muslim women to know what their rights are not only in the Quran, but also
in the nation‐state (Schneider 2009, p. 63).
Yet, the activism work also has taken a different route, as there seems to be angst
about what postcolonial feminism looks like. In her article “Pink Chaddis and
SlutWalk Culture: The Postcolonial Politics of Feminine Lite,” Ratna Kapur con-
tends that feminist movements are heading toward street activism led by young
women. The focus of their activism is sexual violence and victimization of young
women, be it in the street or other social venues like the bar. Kapur concludes that
movements like Pink Chaddi walk or SlutWalk “are situated as a technique of cri-
tique, not only of a dominant attitude towards women’s sexuality, but also of some
segments of the feminist movement’s complicity in reinforcing a sexually‐sensitized
understanding of female subjectivity” (2012, p. 12). Also, fiction is making the same
calls for action as these movements. Kanika Batra’s (2018) article “Transporting
Metropolitanism: Road‐mapping Feminist Solutions to Sexual Violence in Delhi,”
through her reading of two contemporary short stories written by Manjula
Padmanabhan and Irwin Allan Sealy, respectively, argues that more feminist inputs
are necessary to make the city free from sexual violence.
Film and Literary Examples
The section provides examples of films, novels, and autobiographies in which the
directors and authors explore postcolonial feminism.
Deepa Mehta, in her film Water (2005), which is set in 1954 India, shows how the
colonial and indigenous discourses and rules of widowhood helped the Brahmin men
to exploit widows. Both Lata Mani’s (discussed earlier in the section “Rewriting the
Colonial Discourse of Satihood) and Mehta’s analyses take a searing look at the educa-
tion of Indian reformers, such as Raja Rammohan Roy and Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar.
Shohini Chaudhuri argues that Mehta reveals “the social and economic basis of the
religious and spiritual order” and creates a “decisive break with the ‘timeless’ and
unchanging India … [and in] contrast to the exoticizing tendencies of, say, National
Geographic, the deprivations of the widows are firmly embedded within a cultural
context” (2009, pp. 13–14). This aspect of Mehta’s ideology can be heard through,
first, Chuyia, a child widow, who asks, “Where is the ashram for men widows?” And
later, it is heard through the Gandhian Narayan, who confirms “the material source of
this double standard” (Chaudhuri 2009, p. 14): “Disguised as religion, it’s just about
money. One less mouth to feed. Four saris saved, one bed, and a corner is saved in the
family room” (Mehta 2005). Chaudhuri argues that engaging with Water is important
for postcolonial feminists because it “articulates a late‐twentieth century Marxist‐
feminist perspective, rather than that of a nineteenth‐century reformer, by locating
Narayan’s analysis within material and social relations” (2009, p. 18).
Another Marxist‐feminist who critiques the object position of women is
Mahasweta Devi. She has studied the oppression of Dalit women and has written
about their plight in stories like “Dhouli.” In addition, Laura Bruek’s study of Dalit
women’s literature as “feminist rape texts” takes Davi’s discussion of the socioeco-
nomic exploitation of the Dalit women further. Bruek talks about the new wave of
Dalit feminist discourse, which is “working to alter the terms of the social script of
the gendered violence of caste” (2012, p. 233). She concludes that Dalit women write
differently, as they are not only breaking the stereotypical portrayal of Dalit women
but also rewriting Dalit women’s position from a feminist perspective and not a
masculine one. She references the works of the Rajasthani Dalit writer Kussum
Meghwal and her short stories, in which “women exercise both verbal and physical
acts of resistance; most important, the psychological liberation that results from
their resistance belongs to them” (2012, p. 234).
Mariama Bâ, a Senegalese postcolonial feminist writer, also places importance on
the acts of resistance. She focuses on the issue of polygamy in her epistolary novel
So Long a Letter, which is based on her own experience. Laura Charlotte Kempen
(2001) points out that her critiques tend to be divided into two groups: one sees her
as a traditionalist, yet someone who talks about social problems, while the other
considers her as a “Feminist of the French School.” This second group feels that she
achieves consciousness of herself through her writing (2001, p. 27). Bâ’s two main
female characters, Rama and Assatau, show these characteristics. While Rama stays
within the polygamous relationship to support the family, Assatau leaves her hus-
band to preserve her self‐esteem.
In addition, Housa Feminism and the popularity of Kano Market literature (pulp
fiction) add diverse voices to postcolonial feminism in Africa. Balaraba Ramat
Yakubu is known as an Islamic feminist. Her focus is likewise on polygamy, but she
also addresses unwanted pregnancy and abortion. In her novel Budurwa Zuciya
(Young at Heart) (1987), she describes the life of Ummi, a school girl who has many
relationships and gets pregnant. Since her father will not accept an unmarried daugh-
ter who is pregnant, she decides to abort her child. Novian Whitsitt argues that
“[Ummi’s] activities provide Yakubu the opportunity to seize a feminist moment,
that being a medical discussion on the issues of abortion” (2002, p. 125). When
Ummi finds out that she is pregnant, she goes to get an injection which fails to work
because her pregnancy is too far along, so she is forced to return to the doctor to get
a standard abortion.
Applying an intersectional framework within postcolonial feminism can help
scholars explore, analyze, explain, and understand Muslim women’s agencies in
fiction. Such an approach can be applied to two British diasporic fictions:
Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire: A Novel (2017) and Tabish Khair’s Jihadi Jane
(2016). These two novels ask: What kind of negotiations does a Muslim woman
have to make? What role does the politics of veil play in creating or taking away
the freedom of Muslim women? How is the veil used by mainstream political
parties as a ploy to discredit a Muslim women’s role in the society? Religion has
often been deployed to oppress groups of people such as women, racial or ethnic
minorities, or members of other religions. Conversely, religion has often played
a vital role in resistance to oppression, but issues of religion are not always
about power. In Shamsie’s Home Fire and Khair’s Jihadi Jane, religion plays a
complex and contradictory role. In both these novels, characters undertake
complex negotiations while they are developing their identities, and the novels
challenge institutions of orthodox Islam, albeit in different ways. Shamsie plays
with the idea that belief in religion – in this case belief in Islam – entangles other
constituents of identity such as race, sexuality, and national origin. Khair chal-
lenges theological ideas as he explores why young women want to join ISIS
(Islamic State in Iraq and Syria); however, he presents a similar kind of entangle-
ment as Shamsie. Khair creates characters whose parents come from different
national belongings and struggle with identity, yet his characters “engage differ-
ently with theological, cultural, and institutional dimensions of their religion”
(Friedman 2015, p. 119).
Just as identity issues can be investigated through an intersectional framework so
can they be done through disability studies. The disabilities of the women portrayed
in many postcolonial feminist texts such as Anita Desai’s Fasting, Feasting (1999),
Salman Rushdie’s Shame (1983), Jhumpa Lahiri’s “The Treatment of Bibi Haldar”
in Interpreter of Maladies (1999), and so on are tropes for something greater. The
characters who are disabled critique the social construction of normalcy by refusing
to be silenced and by claiming and naming different experiences, particularly sexual
experiences. These texts problematize the simplistic and reductive labels attached to
women with certain illnesses and disabilities. Similarly, disability autobiographies
are an important subject for postcolonial feminism, as they create a new kind of
discourse wherein the disabled person is the subject of the narrative. Nowhere is
this truer than the Nepali writer Jhamak Ghimire’s A Flower in the Midst of Thorns
(2012). This autobiography traces the thoughts of Ghimire, who was born without
arms. She talks about the societal and family outlooks toward a girl who was born
without arms. This autobiography acts as a social justice piece, as well, when
Ghimire says,
No, I never got love and respect. The villagers too would address me Thulee at the pres-
ence of my parents; otherwise, they would call me Saanpey [snake]. This is the result of
the mind‐set: you can address a handicapped person as you like. (2012, p. 22)
In conclusion, the binaries that exist in postcolonial sexuality studies confirm that
the study of postcolonial sexualities is linked to the more difficult task of specifying
how sexuality intersects and interacts with other systems of oppression. For exam-
ple, both Ismat Chughtai and Deepa Mehta talk about how lesbian relationships are
formed and effected by how men see women in domestic relationships. The earliest
work on lesbian identity in India was done by the Urdu writer Ismat Chughtai. Her
1942 short story “Lihaaf” (“The Quilt”) tells a story of same‐sex desire. Deepa
Mehta’s pathbreaking film Fire (1996) narrates the lesbian relationship between two
women. The writer and activist Arundhati Roy, in her most recent novel The Ministry
of Utmost Happiness (2017), discusses the life of Anjum, who participates in the life
of a hijra and becomes a part of the transgender community.
Further Direction
The future direction of postcolonial feminism involves creating more awareness

about the anti‐racist and anti‐capitalist movements, as well as the emergence of bor-
der theory, and connections between the anti‐globalized movement and feminism.
Mohanty, in her influential chapter “Race, Multicultural, and Pedagogies of Dissent”
in her book Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity
(Mohanty et al. 2003), argues,
We understand race, class, gender, nation, sexuality, and colonialism not just in terms of
static, embodied categories but in terms of histories and experiences that tie us
together – that are fundamentally interwoven into our lives. So, “race” or “Asianness”
or “brownness” is not embodied in me, but a history of colonialism, racism, sexism, as
well as of privilege (class and status) is involved in my relation to white people as well
as people of color in the United States.
(Mohanty et al. 2003, p. 191)
Similarly, Rajeswari Sunder Rajan and You‐me Park (2000) explicitly engage
with “postcolonialism” and “feminism,” and they locate their work in relation to
US Third World Feminism. Ambreen Hai, in her article “Border Work, Border
Trouble: Postcolonial Feminism and the Ayah in Bapsi Sidhwa’s Cracking India”
(2000), argues, “Recent feminist and postcolonial work in particular has turned to
the crossing and inhabiting of borders by third world women writers in an effort to
reconsider their strategies of survival as they negotiate – often subversively – the
contradictions of cultural heterogeneity, modernity, nationalism, or diasporic iden-
tity” (pp. 381–382). And Amy Kaplan, in her The Anarchy of Empire in the Making
of U.S. Culture (2002), tries to correct the deficiency in postcolonial studies by
referring to “its inattention to race, as well as race studies’ inattention to the ques-
tion of Empire” (Grewal 2006, p. 390). South Asian and African women writers
who live in the diaspora are writing about these complicated notions of race and
ethnicity, faith and interracial marriages, and sexism and homophobia. Fiction writ-
ers such Bharati Mukherjee, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, and Chimamanda Ngozi
Adichie, for instance, have written about multiculturalism and race relations. Sunil
Bhatia in his American Karma: Race, Culture, Identity and the Diaspora (2007)
explores how the highly skilled professionals became a part of the racial dynamics
of American society and began to be called “people of color.” Ultimately what
becomes important to many of these scholars and particularly for Mohanty is soli-
darity and sisterhood. Mohanty argues, “Feminist solidarity becomes possible when
First World feminists can use the experiences and perspectives of the poorest women
in the world to envision, and collaborate with them in producing, a just society
(Mohanty et al. 2003, pp. 235–244).
Conclusion
The goal of this chapter is to show the central argument of postcolonial feminist
theory by tracing some of the most prominent postcolonial feminist thinkers and by
explaining some of their concerns regarding the representation of women in the
Western imagination, in which these women always appear as objects. The chapter
argues that colonial and dominant Euro‐American discourses have long avoided the
intersectionality of gender, class, race, caste and religion, and sexuality when por-
traying non‐Western women. It echoes Busia’s words: “If we don’t tell our stories,
hailstones will continue to fall on our heads” through the analysis of the films and
fictional works that rewrite these dominant discourses. However, there are many
areas of postcolonial feminism that this chapter has not been able to include, such as
the issues of Aboriginal women in Australia, AIDS and HIV discourse in India and
Africa, and female genital cutting. The chapter provides a suggested reading list for
these issues in addition to some other significant essays that deal with postcolonial
feminist theory and methodology.
References
Abu‐Lughad, L. (2013). Do Muslim Women Need Saving? Harvard University Press.

Ajayi, O. (1997). Negritude, feminism, and the quest for identity: re‐reading Mariama Bâ’s So
Long a Letter. Women’s Studies Quarterly 25 (3/4): 35–52.
Batra, K. (2018). Transporting metropolitanism: road‐mapping feminist solutions to sexual
violence in Delhi. Journal of Postcolonial Writing 54 (3): 387–397.
Brueck, L. (2012). At the intersection of gender and caste: rescripting rape in Dalit feminist
narratives. In: South Asian Feminisms (eds. A. Loomba and R.A. Lukose), 224–243.
Durham: Duke University Press.
Busia, A.P.A. (2010). A song in seven stanzas for our granddaughters. In: African Women
Writing Resistance: An Anthology of Contemporary Voices (eds. J.B. de Hernandez, P.
Dongala, O. Jolaosho and A. Serafin), xx. Madison, Wisconsin: The University of
Wisconsin Press.
Chaudhuri, S. (2009). Snake charmers and child brides: Deepa Mehta’s Water, “exotic” repre-
sentation, and the cross‐cultural spectatorship of South Asian migrant cinema. South
Asian Popular Culture 7 (1): 7–20.
Couser, G.T. (2013). Disability, life narrative, and representation. In: The Disability Studies
Reader (ed. L.J. Davis), 456–459. New York: Routledge.
Davis, C.B. and Graves, A.A. (1986). Ngambika: Studies of Women in African Literature. New
Jersey: Africa World Press.
Dill, B.T. and Kohlman, M.H. (2012). Intersectionality: a transformative paradigm in feminist
theory and social justice. In: Handbook of Feminist Research: Theory and Praxis (ed.
S.N. Hesse‐Biber), 154–174. London: Sage Publications.
Friedman, S.S. (2015). Religion, intersectionality, and queer/feminist narrative theory. The
Bildungsromane of Ahdaf Soueif, Leila Aboulela, and Randa Jarrar. In: Narrative Theory
Unbound. Queer and Feminist Interventions (eds. R. Warhol and S.S. Lanser), 101–122.
Columbus: Ohio State UP.
Ghimire, J. (2012). A Flower in the Midst of Thorns. Nepali Diaspora‐USA: Hasta Gautam
“Mridul.”.
Gopinath, G. (2005). Impossible Desires: Queer Diasporas and South Asian Public Cultures.
Durham: Duke University Press.
Grewal, I. (2006). Gender, Culture, and Empire: Postcolonial U.S. Feminist Scholarship.
Feminist Studies 32 (2): 380–394. https://doi.org/10.2307/20459092.
Grewal, I. and Kaplan, C. (2001). Global identities: theorizing transnational studies of sexual-
ity. GLQ: Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 7 (4): 663–679.
Grewal, I. and Kaplan, C. (2006). Gender, culture, and empire: postcolonial U.S. feminist
scholarship. Feminist Studies 32 (2): 380–394.
Hai, A. (2000). Border work, border trouble: postcolonial feminism and the Ayah in Bapsi
Sidhwa’s Cracking India. Modern Fiction Studies 46 (2): 379–426.
Hudson‐Weems, C. (1994). Africana Womanism: Reclaiming Ourselves. Bedford: Bedford
Publishers.
Kapur, R. (2012). Pink Chaddis and SlutWalk couture: the postcolonial politics of feminism
lite. Feminist Legal Studies 20: 1–20.
Kempen, L.C. (2001). Mariama Bâ, Rigoberta Menchu, and Postcolonial Feminism. New
York: Peter Lang.
Khair, T. (2016). Jihadi Jane. United Kingdom: Interlink Pub Group.
Laver, R. and Paula, K. (1995). I Share My Husband With Seven Other Wives. Marie Claire
(November): 44–50.
Lewis, R. and Mills, S. (2003). Feminist Postcolonial Theory: A Reader. New York: Routledge.
Loomba, A. and Lukose, R.A. (2012). South Asian Feminisms. Durham: Duke University Press.
Mani, L. (1990). Contentious traditions: the debate in sati in colonial India. In: Recasting
Women: Essays in Indian Colonial History (eds. K. Sangari and S. Vaid), 88–126. New
Jersey: Rutgers University Press.
Mehta, Deepa. (2005). Water. Directed by Deepa Mehta. US: Fox SearchLight Pictures.
Misra, Geetanjali. (2009). Decriminalising homosexuality in India. Reproductive Health
Matters 17 (34): 20–28.
Mirza, H.S. (2009). Plotting a history: black and postcolonial feminism in “new times”. Race
Ethnicity and Education 12 (1): 1–10.
Moghissi, H. (1999). Feminism and Islamic Fundamentalism: The Limits of Postmodern
Analysis. London: Zed Press.
Mohanty, C.T., Russo, A., and Torres, L. (1991). Third World Women and the Politics of
Feminism. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Mohanty, C.T., Russo, A., and Torres, L. (2003). Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing
Theory, Practicing Solidarity. Durham: Duke University Press.
Nnaemeka, O. (1997). The Politics of (M)othering: Womanhood, Identity, and Resistance in
African Literature. London: Routledge.
O’Connell, J., Reyes, A., Berger, I. et al. (1995). Postcolonial, emergent, and indigenous femi-
nisms. Signs 20 (4): 787–796.
Purkaystha, B. (2012). Intersectionality in a transnational world. Gender and Society 26 (1):
55–66.
Quayson, A. (2000). Postcolonialism: Theory, Practice or Process. London: Polity.
Rajan, S. and Rajeswari (1993). The subject of sati: pain and death in the contemporary
discourse on sati. In: Real and Imagined Women: Gender, Culture and Postcolonialism.
New York: Routledge.
Roy, A. (2017). The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. New York: Alfred A. Knof.
Schneider, N.C. (2009). Islamic feminism and Muslim women’s rights activism in India: from
transnational discourse to local movement—or vice versa? Journal of International
Women’s Studies 11 (1): 56–71.
Sen, Atreyee. (2012). “Women’s Vigilantism in India: A Case Study of the Pink Sari Gang.”
Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence: n.p. www.sciencespo.fr.
Shamsie, K. (2017). Home Fire. New York: Penguin Random House.
Spivak, G. (1985). Can the subaltern speak? In: Colonial Discourse and Postcolonial Theory
(eds. P. Williams and L. Chrisman) 1994. New Work: Columbia University Press.
Spivak, G. (1999). A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of a Vanishing
Present. Cambridge: Harvard UP.
Stratton, F. (1994). Contemporary African Literature and the Politics of Gender. New York:
Routledge.
Sukthankar, A. (2012). Queering approaches to sex, gender, and labor in India: examining
paths to sex worker unionism. In: South Asian Feminisms (eds. A. Loomba and R.A.
Lukose), 224–243. Durham: Duke University Press.
Suleri, S. (1992). The Rhetoric of English India. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Sunder Rajan, R. and Park, Y.‐M. (2000). Postcolonial feminism/ Postcolonialism and femi-
nism. In: A Companion to Postcolonial Studies (eds. H. Schwarz and S. Ray), 53–71.
Oxford UK: Blackwell Publishing.
Tohidi, N. (2007). Muslim feminism and Islamic feminism: the case of Iran. In: Feminist
Theologies. Legacy and Prospect (ed. R.M.R. Ruether), 93–116. Minneapolis: Fortress
Press.
Whitsitt, N. (2002). Islamic‐Hausa feminism and Kano market literature: Qur’anic reinterpre-
tation in the novels of Balaraba Yakubu. Research in African Literatures 33 (2): 119–136.
Zia, A.S. (2009). The reinvention of feminism in Pakistan. Feminist Review 91: 29–46.
Suggested Further Reading
Ali, S. (2007). Feminism and postcolonial: knowledge/politics. Ethnic and Racial Studies
30 (2): 191–212.
Afzal‐Khan, F. and Seshadri‐Crooks, K. (2002). The Pre‐occupation of Postcolonial Studies.
Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Ahmad, H.Z. (1998). Postnational Feminism in Third World Women’s Literature. Boston:
University of Massachusetts Press.
Ahmed, L. (2011). A Quiet Revolution. The Veil’s Resurgence from the Middle East to
America. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Ahmed, S. (1996). Beyond humanism and postmodernism: theorizing a feminist practice.
Hypatia 11 (2): 71–93.
Amuta, C. (1989). The Theory of African Literature. London: Zed Books.
Ashcroft, W.D. (1989). Intersecting marginalities: post‐colonialism and feminism. Kunapipi
11 (2): 23–35.
Batra, K. (2018). Transporting metropolitanism: road‐mapping feminist solutions to sexual
violence in Delhi. Journal of Postcolonial Writing 54 (3): 387–397.
Bulbeck, C. (1998). Re‐orienting Western Feminism: Women’s Diversity in a Postcolonial
World. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Chambers, C. and Watkins, S. (2012). Postcolonial feminism? The Journal of Commonwealth
Literature 47 (3): 297–301.
Devi, M. (2002). Outcast. Four Stories (trans. S.D. Gupta), Dhouli. Calcutta: Seagull Books.
Ghimire, J. (2012). A Flower in the Midst of Thorns. Nepali Diaspora‐USA: Hasta Gautam
“Mridul.”.
Mohanty, C.T. (2004). Toward and anti‐imperialistic politics: reflections of a Desi feminist.
South Asian Popular Culture 2 (1): 69–73.
Mahmood, S. (2005). Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. New
Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Mahmood, S. (2006). US empire and the project of women’s studies: stories of citizenship,
complicity and dissent. Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography
13 (1): 7–20.
Mir‐Hosseini, Z. (2006). Muslim women’s quest for equality: between Islamic law and femi-
nism. Critical Inquiry 32: 629–645.
Suri, M. (2013). The City of Devi. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Udumukwu, O. (1994). Post‐colonial feminism: Zaynab Alkali’s The Still Born. Literary
Griot: International Journal of Black Expressive Cultural Studies 6 (1): 47–60.
Vanita, R. (2007). Lesbian studies and activism in India. Journal of Lesbian Studies 11 (3/4):
245–253.
Vanita, R. and Kidwai, S. (2000). Same‐Sex Love in India: Readings from Literature and
History. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Companion To Feminist Studies - 2020 - Naples - Postcolonial Feminism

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Companion To Feminist Studies - 2020 - Naples - Postcolonial Feminism

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

9

The critical perspective of postcolonial feminism addresses inequalities related to

Companion to Feminist Studies, First Edition. Edited by Nancy A. Naples.

Rewriting the Colonial Discourse of Satihood

At the center of postcolonial studies is the reclaiming of precolonial history and

By colonial discourse I mean a mode of understanding Indian society that emerged

The Critique of Third World Women

In response to some of the conditions that Gopinath identified, Ashwini

This statement is directed toward Negritude, “a philosophical concept noted for

Muslim and Islamic Feminism as Part of Postcolonial Feminism

Understood in this manner, Muslim feminism offers a mechanism through which

This question is central to concerns of representing global women. Similarly,

Postcolonial Feminism and Disability Studies

Postcolonial Feminism and Grassroots Activism

The future direction of postcolonial feminism involves creating more awareness

Abu‐Lughad, L. (2013). Do Muslim Women Need Saving? Harvard University Press.

Suggested Further Reading

You might also like