Toward Transnational Feminist Literacy Practices

Abstract

This essay expands transnational feminist methodology such that it better affirms both women's agency and noncapitalism. By bridging transnational feminism and antiessentialist Marxism in the context of feminist development studies, it builds on the contributions of Chandra Talpade Mohanty, which reorient modernist development to take women's agency seriously. However, the lens provided by J. K. Gibson-Graham and other antiessentialist Marxist authors shows how the capitalocentrism and power essentialism woven into Mohanty's efforts diminish women's agency and constrain our political futures. By rereading Maria Mies's study on women lace makers in India, which Mohanty often cites, I explore the productivity of Gibson-Graham's focus on the languages of diverse and community economies. Based on this exploration, I sketch a contour of transnational feminist literacy practices that enable us to recognize and build upon noncapitalism within a web of social interdependence, with a critical eye to the specificities of women's agency.

Key Words:

• Antiessentialist Marxism
• Chandra Talpade Mohanty
• Development Studies
• J. K. Gibson-Graham
• Transnational Feminism

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Julie Graham for her everlasting inspiration and Peter Tamás for his assistance in shaping the ideas in this paper. I am likewise grateful for the comments and encouragement provided by Esra Erdem and Suzanne Bergeron.

Notes

1. The capitalocentric tendency can be observed in other transnational feminist works as well.

2. See Gibson-Graham and Ruccio (2001) for an antiessentialist Marxist critique of capitalocentrism in postdevelopment.

3. See Sato (2006) for an antiessentialist Marxist critique of power essentialism in postdevelopment.

4. See Chakrabarti and Cullenberg (2003) for an antiessentialist Marxist critique of historical materialism.

5. Marx discusses five modes of production: primitive communism, slavery, Asiatic (or ancient or independent), feudalism, and capitalism.

6. While forces of production with its emphasis on the material aspects “reflect human beings’ encounter with nature in the production process” and “include instruments of production, raw materials, labor power, the skills in the labor force, technology, and so forth,” relations of production “emphasize (social) relations between people in the production process” and take a form of class relations “between the direct producers and the nonproducers” (Chakrabarti and Cullenberg 2003, 297–8).

7. Satya Mohanty (2000) has presented postpositivist realist epistemology as an alternative to both foundationalism and postmodern relativism. Postpositivist realist epistemology takes issue with postmodern relativism insofar as the latter conceives of identity as fragmented, contradictory, and changing and makes identity irrelevant to analysis. In order to avoid postmodern relativism, Mohanty insists that identity is also grounded in concrete material “facts” (such as gender, race, and class relations), social location, and experience.

8. This point should not be taken lightly since big capitalists today, such as Wal-Mart, are mainly merchants. See, for example, Mulder (2011) for discussions on Wal-Mart as a merchant capitalist.

9. I owe this point to Esra Erdem.

10. Gabriel (1990) articulated the private and individualized character of this act of self-appropriation as self-exploitation, distinguishing this form of appropriation from collective appropriation and also from the form of exploitation found in capitalist relations of production.