Women, Globalization and Contemporary Politics of Belonging

Abstract

This article is based on a keynote speech from the conference Gender at the Interface of the Global and the Local—Perspectives from China and the Nordic Countries (The Third Sino-Nordic Women and Gender Studies Conference), which was held in Kunming, China in November 2008. The article starts with a summing up of important issues on the theme of gender and globalization, a change that I see as epochal and just in its beginning. In this article, emphasis is on contemporary politics of belonging. What we often see is an “invention of tradition” and “a symbolic retreat to the past”, where women’s roles become pertinent to meeting the challenges of globalization and neo-colonialism locally. The politics of belonging is a notion needed to denaturalize gender roles and relationships of hearth, home and safety within a world in motion

Key Words:

• women
• globalization
• migration
• social change
• intersectionality
• belonging
• politics of belonging