Transnational Feminist Theory and Practice: An Introduction

Abstract

This article introduces central features of transnational feminism and discusses how these characteristics provide a foundation for transnational feminist practice in psychology. These core themes emphasize: (a) reflexivity and positionality; (b) intersectionality in transnational perspective; (c) inclusive definitions of global and transnational feminisms; (d) transnational border-crossing practices; (e) agency and resistance in global perspective; (f) decolonization of theory, knowledge, and practice; (g) egalitarian collaboration and alliance building; and (h) theories and practices that support critical consciousness and social change. Examples of how these features are highlighted by this special issue’s authors are integrated with summaries of themes.

Keywords:

• Borderland practice
• global
• transnational feminism
• transnational feminist psychology
• women/gender

Transnational and border-crossing feminisms offer transformative options for disrupting oppression and advancing liberation in global and diverse cultural contexts. They embrace the complexity of massive 21st-century social changes and challenges and offer bridge-building options for working across and between multiple countries and regions of the world. In this introductory article, we provide a brief overview of transnational feminisms, which is followed by a more in-depth discussion of transnational feminist themes, concepts, and practices that provide a philosophical foundation for the articles in this special issue.

Defining Transnational Feminisms and Practices

The term transnational is an umbrella concept that emerged as “a way to name the dramatically increasing flows of people, things, images, and ideas across the borders of nation-states in an era of ‘globalization’” (Conway, 2019, p. 43). Transnational feminist perspectives focus on the diverse experiences of women who live within, between, and at the margins or boundaries of nation-states around the globe; they transcend nation-state boundaries and speak to a wide range of interacting forces that have an impact on gendered relationships and experiences in a geopolitical context. They also encompass “border work” and communication across traditional global boundaries; may occur in global, regional, and local contexts; and include the experiences of immigrants, refugees, displaced persons, those who have experienced forced migration, members of a cultural diaspora who may be dispersed across multiple regions, as well as those who identify themselves as third-culture persons and persons who are attempting to integrate multiple cultural identities (Horne & Arora, 2013). The transnational practice may occur in the healer or seeker’s nation or culture of origin, a culture in which one is displaced or an immigrant, or a setting in which one is a temporary sojourner. It also encompasses the experiences of women who live in cultural borderlands and spaces between cultures.

Transnational feminist theory and practice emphasize intersectionality, interdisciplinarity, social activism and justice, and collaboration. They seek to destabilize notions that women around the world share the same types of experiences, oppressions, forms of exploitation, and privileges; they explore differences and inequalities between women, such as different priorities and ways of understanding gender issues and different ways of conceptualizing agency. Transnational and postcolonial feminisms highlight social-structural factors that exacerbate power differences, including colonialism and neocolonialism, economic realities, and global capitalism (Grewal & Kaplan, 1994). Postcolonial feminisms resist colonial and imperialist forces; reject Euro-American feminisms that universalize women’s oppressions; and are informed by the distinctive social, political, and historical contexts and oppression of women.

Central features of transnational feminisms include efforts to foster transnational solidarity and collaboration between feminists who are from different countries or the diaspora and who value difference as a foundation for activism. Respect for differences includes recognizing global power differences and regional perspectives, listening to women from Southern regions whose experiences challenge partial viewpoints, viewing differences among women as opportunities to enrich our understandings of complex issues, and highlighting the perspectives of women whose voices have often been silenced. Eradicating inequalities and centralizing the concerns and strengths of feminists from multiple world regions, especially the Global South and marginalized women of color, represent major goals. Cultural humility on the part of feminists from the Global North is also necessary for creating productive transnational collaborative frameworks that dislodge power dynamics that have often resulted in unequal relationships between feminists from wealthy countries and women from many other regions around the world. As contemporary realities become increasingly complex and fluid and global inequalities become more complicated, a transnational feminist perspective is of growing relevance to feminist psychotherapy practice in many settings (Collins et al., 2019).

The acronym WEIRD, which refers to western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic countries and people, is often used to accent the demographic characteristics and social identities of persons who make up the overwhelming majority (80%) of psychology research participants and provide a basis for most knowledge foundations in psychology (Henrich et al., 2010). Persons who can be described as WEIRD are also the least representative persons of the world, making up 12% of the world’s population.

It is difficult to create adequate, respectful language to describe regions and countries of the world with greater wealth, power, and privilege and those with less wealth, power, and privilege, while also avoiding the possibility of reinforcing binary frameworks, distortions, and stereotypes. Words do not adequately convey complex and fluid realities. Contributors to this volume make efforts to use neutral phrases to characterize broad regions. The phrases Global North (e.g., Heshmati et al., 2020) and Minority World (e.g., Abeyasekera & Marecek, 2020) are often used to denote countries and regions that have historically held greater dominance in terms of intellectual, economic, and military power. The WEIRD research participants described in the previous paragraph reside primarily in Northern countries and the Minority World. The words Western, Eurocentric, or U.S.-centric are also used by some authors to describe the hegemonic nature of WEIRD psychologies. In contrast, transnational scholars tend to use the Global South or Majority World to refer to regions that have historically held less power and where roughly 80% of the world’s population reside (Collins et al., 2019). In liberation psychology terms, this reconstruction and renaming of terms constitute acts of feminist affirmation, resistance, and empowerment. A more extended discussion of a rationale for using Global North/South or Minority/Majority World can be found within this issue’s articles (e.g., Abeyasekera & Marecek, 2020; Heshmati et al., 2020).

Core Themes in Transnational Feminist Practice

In the following sections, we discuss many of the themes that inform transnational feminisms and their relevance to transnational feminist practice. We use headings that begin with verbs to highlight the active and evolving nature of these defining features. They include: (a) practicing reflexivity; (b) applying intersectional lenses; (c) defining global and transnational feminisms inclusively; (d) crossing borders; (e) valuing diverse forms of agency and resistance; (f) decolonizing theory, knowledge, and practice; (g) creating and sustaining egalitarian collaborations; and (h) centralizing theories and practices that support critical consciousness and social change. Many of these characteristics overlap with multiple social justice perspectives in psychology; within transnational contexts, however, these themes tend to take on specific meanings. In this introduction, we provide a brief overview of principles, describe transnational applications of these themes, and link them to the examples from articles in this special issue.

Practicing Reflexivity

Similar to other scholars and practitioners committed to social justice, transnational feminists emphasize the importance of self-reflexivity and the critical examination of their positionality. Reflexivity can be defined as the practice of “taking stock of one’s assumptions, values, standpoint, and social locations to assess how these might influence one’s views of others” (Marecek, 2019, p. 190). Reflexivity within the transnational context includes exploring, critiquing, and deconstructing how Northern or Euro-centric knowledge, including psychological knowledge, is produced and disseminated, with an emphasis on how this process is relevant to gender-related experiences (Canetto, 2019; Yakushko, 2020). It also entails self-examination of how we consciously or unconsciously support oppressive patriarchal systems. Practicing deep levels of reflexivity not only informs our knowledge of how cultures shape us as individuals but how we may be viewed by persons from other cultural contexts. Decolonized reflexivity moves us beyond awareness to active collaborative engagement in dismantling systems of oppression within us and around us.

A second term, positionality, is closely related to reflexivity and refers to one’s position in the world; one’s multiple and intersecting social identities; and one’s sources of privilege, power, and marginalization. In the interest of transparency, feminist, multicultural, and transnational researchers and practitioners often use positionality statements to convey how their social identities and cultural affiliations may influence their understandings or biases. Positionality statements are included within many of the articles in this special issue and as part of the “about the authors” section of this special issue. As editors, our goal is to use our different backgrounds, perspectives, and transnational experiences to ensure that the transnational feminist psychologies presented in this issue are inclusive as well as attentive to diversity and intersectionality (for biographical information of editors, see American Psychological Association, 2013, 2019; Comas-Díaz, 2010; Enns, 2017; drthema.com).

Awareness of positionality paves the way for “frame shifting,” which can be defined as the cognitive and behavioral flexibility that allows one to shuttle between different perspectives and worldviews in order to function and communicate effectively across cultural contexts. One of the early writers on transnational feminism, Maria Lugones (1987), coined the phrase “world traveling” to convey how frame-shifting, flexibility, and appreciation for alternative cultural views can be facilitated. The first step involves developing awareness of the cultural practices that shape “us,” which involves exploring oppressions and privileges that affect our lives, and considering how these oppressions differ from or may parallel the experiences of women in transnational contexts. A second step involves exploring “what it is to be ourselves in their eyes” (p. 18), such as by reflecting on how factors such as colonialism (or neocolonialism), military involvement, male privilege, and other forms of power may influence perceptions about who we are. A third step consists of efforts to see women in transnational contexts as they see themselves and to acknowledge and accept their expertise about themselves. The practice of “world traveling” supports the examination of assumptions, informs a critical examination of academic disciplines, and provides insights relevant to decolonizing dominant forms of knowledge.

Applying Intersectional Lenses

Intersectionality is a cornerstone of multicultural feminist and social justice approaches and typically refers to the complex interactions among social identities experienced by individuals, such as race/ethnicity, nationality and language, sexual orientation, religion, gender, disability, colorism, and age. Within the legal field, intersectionality was introduced by Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989) to underscore the complex multidimensional and interactive oppression experienced by women of color. For example, the fusing of racism and sexism often results in hybrid “isms” such as gendered racism (e.g., Chavez-Dueñas & Adames, 2020).

Transnational feminisms expand on the basic concept of intersectionality by emphasizing global structural and historical factors such as economic exploitation and oppressive forces associated with colonialism, imperialism, extreme forms of capitalism, structural racism, and gendered racism, as well as other forms of globalization that reinforce the dominance of Northern world regions (Grabe & Else-Quest, 2012). For example, cultural norms and rules and legacies of colonialism and imperialism, including neocolonialism, may interact with other social identities such as class, ethnicity/race, or gender to create complex transnational intersectionalities. These interacting dimensions are fluid, dynamic, and have a significant impact on the lives of women as illustrated by multiple articles in this issue (Chavez-Dueñas & Adames, 2020; Hernandez-Wolfe & Acevedo, 2020; Thompson et al., 2020; Vazquez, 2020).

Global capitalism and economic exploitation are identified as major contributors to transnational inequities and intersectionalities. Economic globalization typically involves the expansion of capitalism, which often affects production and trade practices in the Global South, which are increasingly regulated through multinational corporations and banks and contribute to global disparities in resources and well-being (Moghadam, 2015). Valentine Moghadam (2005) describes globalization as “a gendered process” (p. ix), noting that structural changes due to economic globalization have been especially disadvantageous to women in terms of wages, opportunities for training, and occupational segregation. Changing work structures have resulted in the “feminization” of work-related realities; meanwhile, women also retain primary responsibility for work within their households. These economic forces represent aspects of the ecological structure which affect mental health and well-being. Priorities of transnational feminist activism include addressing structural effects of intersections involving economic forces, as well as challenging gender violence toward girls, women, and LGBTQ individuals.

The articles in this special issue feature a wide range of transnational intersectionalities that feature specific world regions such as South America, the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe (Ukraine), Pan-African contexts, and a variety of migration, immigration, and displacement experiences. Each of these regional aspects of identity contributes to complex and often hybrid identities and realities through their intersection with diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, religious and spiritual values, language, skin color and ethnicity, lifecycle and generational priorities, cultural differences, and legacies of colonization or privilege. For example, whereas persons from Guyana, Haiti, and the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) share a Caribbean identity (Nicolas et al., 2020), they also experience substantial diversity due to different colonial histories (by the countries of Great Britain, France, Spain, and Denmark), official and indigenous languages (e.g., English, Guyanese Creole, French, Haitian Creole, Caribbean languages such as Taino), ethnicities (e.g., indigenous peoples, Afro-Caribbean, Arab-Caribbean, Indo-Caribbean), government structures, and local spiritual practices (e.g., Obeah, Lukumi, Santería, Vodoun, Espiritismo). Understanding these diversities and related intersectionalities is a crucial foundation for respectful engagement.

Defining Global and Transnational Feminisms Inclusively

One of the early efforts to establish unified global feminism was referred to as a “sisterhood is global” approach (Morgan, 1984). This perspective has been criticized as articulating romanticized and utopian views of women around the world, offering a single feminist mold for understanding gender issues and underscoring the similarities of women’s experiences and oppressions. It was promoted primarily by the feminists from Minority World regions and implied that Euro-American worldviews, values, and strategies for change are normative (Chavez-Dueñas & Adames, 2020; Collins, Machizawa, & Rice, 2019; Grewal & Kaplan, 1994; Thompson et al., 2020). Power differences, privileges, and oppressions among women across world regions, nationalities, colonial history, economic realities, race/ethnicity, and sexuality were addressed in only limited ways. Robin Morgan’s (1984) vision was also criticized for celebrating a “universalized Western model of women’s liberation that celebrates individuality and modernity” (Grewal & Kaplan, 1994, p. 17). In reality, gender-related oppression, inequality, and power structures are manifested in complex, diverse, dispersed, changing, and sometimes confusing or contradictory ways. The phrase “scattered hegemonies” (Grewal & Kaplan, 1994) speaks to the complexity and fluidity of power structures, local variations in how social power operates, and the reality that a single approach to social change is of limited relevance to the diverse circumstances and needs of women around the world.

In contrast to a universal sisterhood approach, transnational feminisms seek to examine gendered experiences both within and across Northern and Southern regions, analyze their interdependencies, and build linkages and coalitions around the world that are based on shared goals. These shared goals need to be flexible, modifiable, defined inclusively, and thus, may be temporary or limited in focus. Transnational feminists have placed less emphasis on developing unifying theory and more emphasis on using lenses for recognizing the diversity of gendered experience. Rather than being border-restrictive, the linkages, interdependencies, connections, contradictions, and discontinuities of gender experiences in multiple contexts are highlighted.

Chandra Mohanty (2003) recommended implementing a transnational solidarity approach that does not presume the existence of identical priorities or common identity but focuses on concrete interconnected and interrelated issues that can lend themselves to productive activism and alliance-building across borders. Shared interests, not priorities imposed by those with greater privilege than others, are crucial and can provide a foundation for solidarity and shared purpose. This solidarity is attentive to the different impacts of globalization on women in different regions, as well as their different priorities, values, and definitions of goals. Within this issue, Hernandez-Wolfe and Acevedo (2020) discuss the long-term challenges of bringing together more privileged groups (U.S. graduate students) and Afro-Colombian activists and finding common ground across divergent values, assumptions, and learning styles. This case study provides important insights into the challenges of restructuring ways of thinking, living, and practicing for the purpose of enhancing communication and solidarity.

One challenging reality is that feminists from the Global North continue to have significant power in defining which issues should receive attention and which agendas and forms of activism should be supported. Nevertheless, women in the Global South regularly create and maintain activist movements without the political, emotional, or fiscal support of women in the Global North. Despite challenges, Valentine Moghadam (2015) identified a variety of successful transnational feminist networks that challenge the forces that undermine women’s status and well-being, such as (a) global economic practices that are harmful to women; (b) religious and cultural practices that place restrictions on women; (c) imperialism, war, and militarism; (d) violence against women, and (e) human rights issues. In addition, humanitarian efforts on behalf of women are often addressed by transnational networks. Many contemporary networks feature leadership by women from Southern regions and emphasize connections within Southern regions (South-South connections) (Conway, 2019).

Viewing gender issues through the lenses of local communities, recognizing that feminism is “situated” (Haraway, 1988; Hernandez-Wolfe & Acevedo, 2020), and understanding that individuals who face complex issues in global context are “their own best experts” enhance the possibilities for successful activism by transnational feminist networks. In addition, it is important to recognize that building trust and practicing cultural humility are crucial because “feminism” is sometimes perceived as constructions of Northern women and not relevant to many global contexts. For example, “feminism” may have particularly negative connotations in countries that have experienced histories of colonization. In other regions such as Latin America, feminism is often thought to be a product of urban, middle-class, elitist values (Chavez-Dueñas & Adames, 2020) and, thus, holds limited appeal to women who contend with complex webs resulting from factors such as economic exploitation, racism, and government repression. Guerda Nicolas et al. (2020) indicate that Caribbean women are unlikely to claim a feminist identity but endorse equal rights, women’s self-determination, and women’s leadership within communities. Feminism, these authors argue, may seem to be of limited relevance to many women of the Caribbean due to their self-generated and successful involvement in social justice issues (e.g., the fight against slavery) and their longstanding contribution to the economic well-being of their households. Many women may prefer ideologies such as “womanism,” “female-ism,” or “mujerismo” because they differ from dominant ideologies of feminism, offer a distinctive emphasis on indigenous feminisms (Bryant-Davis & Comas-Díaz, 2016; Chavez-Dueñas & Adames, 2020), and support flexible commitments to intersectional approaches and human rights rather than a narrow definition of “women’s issues.”

Crossing Borders

Transnational feminisms emphasize interactions across boundaries and the spaces between national boundaries, including the borders and realities faced by refugees, diasporic communities, displaced individuals, and mobile populations. A feminist transnational perspective incorporates multiple concepts such as shifting borders and boundaries, straddling borders, transcending borders, and using borderland thinking as sources of information and strength (Comas-Díaz & Vazquez, 2018; Hernandez-Wolfe & Acevedo, 2020). Borderland thinking is useful in many ways: as a way of considering complex hybrid identities, understanding oppression, framing resistance and empowerment, and conceptualizing activism.

Gloria Anzaldúa’s (1987) borderland theory, which has been integrated with transnational perspectives, depicted the experiences of Chicanas and Latinas as they navigated geographical boundaries, which required them to flexibly straddle and negotiate differing cultural, religious/spiritual, linguistic, ethnic, and psychological realities. This intersectional approach informed Latinas’ painful experiences with racism, sexism, and other forms of marginalization, but also provided ways of transforming obstacles into strengths and resilience. For example, living along cultural borders allowed Latinas “a shift in perception, one that allows them to see accurately through people, events, systems, and dynamics” (Comas-Díaz & Vazquez, 2018, p. 7). Closely related to this concept, Chéla Sandoval (1991) described differential consciousness, which refers to the skills and agency of persons who face multiple intersecting oppressions. Differential consciousness often involves strategically foregrounding one or more aspects of one’s multiple identities (e.g., gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation) in order to adapt and respond effectively to shifting contexts and power structures. In light of their acquaintance with multiple intersecting identities, Chéla Sandoval (1998) also called on Latinas to live at the borders and “function as a working chiasmus (a mobile crossing) between races, genders, sexes, cultures, and nations” (p. 352). Anzaldúa’s (1987) approach offered a complex intersectional description of Latinas’ experiences as well as their strengths for combatting oppression. Both aspects are relevant to the challenges and rewards of global border crossings.

This issue features multiple articles that speak about border crossing. Carmen Vazquez (2020) illustrates her use of testimonio and other methods to support critical consciousness in order to help clients navigate borders related to the culture of their ancestors and their current realities. As another example, Thompson et al. (2020) work from a position of Pan-Africanism to navigate continental borders and make use of racial identity theory to embrace the humanity and wholeness of African-descended people.

Hernandez-Wolfe and Acevedo (2020) focus on using borderland spaces for challenging Euro-centric ways of organizing knowledge. They speak about straddling knowledge foundations that are grounded in Eurocentric and indigenous epistemologies and work to integrate mainstream traditions in psychology with liberation healing traditions. By bringing together Afro-Columbian activists and graduate students from the United States, they help participants encounter new learning (indigenous Latin American practices) and “see” reality in new ways as they cross borders. Through direct exposure to the learning styles of Afro-Columbian women, U.S.-based students revisit and rethink their assumptions about learning. Across many articles in this issue, authors clarify how transnational feminist psychologists operate as border guides who assist others as they navigate unfamiliar territory, challenge dominant paradigms, and reconsider their life stories and experiences in new ways.

Valuing Diverse Forms of Agency and Resistance

One of the ethnocentric practices of feminists from the Global North has been the tendency to view women in the Global South as less fortunate sisters who need Northern feminists’ expertise and insight to overcome oppression. Women of the Southern World have often been depicted as passive, uninformed victims, and as dependent on Northern feminist “saviors” (Mendoza, 2002) and their “imperial feminist benevolence” (Deb, 2016, p. 170).

Distortions of women’s agency and resistance across world regions are often based on: (a) binary definitions of what it means to be a victim or thriving; (b) ethnocentric assumptions about how agency and resistance should be defined and what behaviors and attitudes represent acts of resistance and agency; and (c) lack of attention to how cultural values and structural forces affect forms of agency and resistance that are valued and effective within a culture. As noted by multiple contributors to this special issue (e.g., Abeyasekera & Marecek, 2020; Heshmati et al., 2020), individualistic forms of agency of resistance that are most familiar in the Global North are not adequate for understanding the diverse forms of coping, survival, and resistance that are practiced by persons in many regions of the world (Hilsdon, 2007). Furthermore, the implicit racist, ethnocentric, and intersectional biases of feminists of the Global North also contribute to distortions of women’s agency.

For many persons who live in Majority World, Southern contexts, concepts such as “autonomy,” “choice,” or individual “empowerment” are seen as overvalued or irrelevant (Abeyasekera & Marecek, 2020; Hilsdon, 2007). In cultures in which relational, collectivist values predominate and the self is defined in relation to kinship patterns, definitions of the agency are typically more complex, varied, and multifaceted than in settings in which individualism prevails. In Sri Lanka, for example, women’s agency and accomplishment are often expressed by affirming a relational self, which may take the form of fulfilling culturally valued obligations and “living for others,” fulfilling care-related work in a kinship context, or maintaining a family’s standing within a community (Abeyasekera, 2017). Agency is disrupted when relationships are not reciprocal and/or family or kinship structures are damaged. Abeyasekera and Marecek (2020) explain that for rural women in Sri Lanka, expressions of agency can even be seen in some suicide-like acts, which may fulfill the goals of expressing shame when a family’s face may be lost and/or maintaining family or community harmony.

An example of ethnocentrism can be found in views of Muslim women (especially women who wear head coverings) as exemplars of the “silent, apolitical, exotic Muslim woman” (Deb, 2016, p. 165), with the burqa defined as “the ultimate yardstick of women’s oppression” (p. 167). As noted by authors of “Policing Muslim Women’s Bodies” (Heshmati, Ali, & Pitre, 2020), Northern feminists have tended to see the burqa or other forms of veiling as evidence of victimhood and as a sign that women need rescuing. However, many Muslim women view the hijab or other coverings as forms of self-care and positive self-regard; agency and empowerment; and resistance to colonization, Islamophobia, and Northern influences. Authors illustrate how agency and resistance are enacted according to their own terms and values (e.g., wearing a hijab) and offer a complex and nuanced perspective on Muslim women’s coping and resilience.

As another example of agency, Chavez-Dueñas and Adames (2020) describe the dehumanization of Indigenous peoples during the colonial period in Latin America. They describe a wide range of passive, active, and spiritual forms of agency and resistance used by Indigenous and Black women as they fought their colonizers. These examples can also inform contemporary women of their herstories, counteract stereotypes of women as submissive victims, and provide a foundation for agency and resistance in the present. Agency may include a wide range of acts such as telling one’s story, defining one’s self, naming and resisting oppression, engaging in acts of joy, play, pleasure, and care, and using one’s creative powers to combat limitations. Agency may also include recovering historical memory and honoring ancestral wisdom (Comas-Díaz & Torres Rivera, 2020).

Those who have been colonized or have historically held less power offer a valuable “outsider” perspective that supports agency and resistance. As “outsiders,” women of color have typically developed an intimate knowledge of the dominant culture in order to develop coping and survival skills (Collins, 2000). These forms of the agency include la facultad, a phrase used by Latinas to describe an intuitive perceptiveness and survival tactic based on knowledge of one’s own painful experiences of marginalization which allows one to “adjust quickly and gracefully to changing (and often threatening) circumstances” (Moya, 2001, p. 469). These types of “outsider” skills, which often remain invisible to those with more power, are important for understanding creative forms of agency and resistance in the transnational context.

Decolonizing Theory and Practice

A central feature of transnational feminism is its challenge of dominant forms of knowledge and the creation of decolonized alternatives. Decolonization involves identifying the profound ways in which colonization (especially European/Northern colonization) has altered local and indigenous knowledge and experience, as well as dismantling knowledge, theories, and practices that were created in the Minority World and have supported domination and inequalities around the globe. The history and effects of colonialism and imperialism, especially the domination of Northern/European regions over other peoples, are long-lasting and complex and continue in the present. The effects of colonialism persist in both blatant and subtle ways and are addressed by many articles in this special issue. Colonial and ethnocentric worldviews can contribute to nonconscious attitudes of Northern feminists who have benefited by many of the outcomes of colonialism and imperialism.

Colonization is associated with long-term harmful consequences at individual, social-structural, and macro-systemic levels. At an individual level, colonization can take the form of post-colonization stress disorder (Comas-Díaz, 2000), which names the personal consequences of contending with a legacy of cultural imperialism and racism, such as the need to accept the norms of the dominant culture in order to survive. Some of these consequences include victimization, alienation, self-denial, identity conflicts, and ambivalence or negative attitudes about oneself in interaction with the dominant culture (Comas-Díaz, 2000; Vazquez, 2020). Gaining awareness of the ways in which individuals have become unsuspecting hosts to the colonizing forces is an important component of critical consciousness, conscientization (conscientização), or consciousness-raising. The Portuguese word conscientização is translated as “learning to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions, and to take action against the oppressive elements of reality” (Freire, 1970, p. 19). Decolonization involves exploring how individuals have internalized the beliefs of colonizers and how, in response, they have adopted coping strategies such as silence, accommodation, evasiveness, ingratiation, or manipulation. Awareness provides a foundation for enacting personal and social change.

Multiple articles in this issue speak to colonization as it affects individuals and groups from multiple regions and diasporas. Examples include Colombian women (Hernandez-Wolfe & Acevedo, 2020), Latinx, and Latin American women (Chavez-Dueñas & Adames, 2020), and women of African descent whose ancestors were abducted as part of the transatlantic slave trade (Thompson et al., 2020). The I AM Womanista psychotherapy approach developed by Chavez-Dueñas and Adames (2020) is designed to help Latinx women resist colonization by developing knowledge of their pre-colonial history, gaining critical consciousness about the conquest of Indigenous peoples by Spaniards, and implementing active forms of resistance and liberation.

Knowledge foundations of psychology and the mental health professions are also influenced by colonial or neocolonial forces which shape who is deemed an expert or source of knowledge as well as what processes are assumed legitimate based on a disconnection (presumed objectivity) from the population being studied. This knowledge is typically “taken for granted,” and biases and unexamined assumptions often remain invisible and unquestioned. The use of “disciplinary reflexivity” (Canetto 2019) involves the critical examination of academic disciplines. Important questions include: Whose interests are served when knowledge is structured in this way? Who benefits from change or the status quo? What implicit values inform dominant Northern psychologies, and how do they limit options for others (Freire & Macedo, 2000)? Yakushko (2020) elaborates on this topic through her passionate critique of dominant Northern psychologies and their colonizing influences, as well as their limitations for addressing her concerns as a person immigrating from Ukraine. The decolonization of psychological knowledge is discussed in greater depth in the final article of this issue.

To decolonize knowledge within feminism and the psychology of women, it is necessary to transform knowledge creation by challenging the “white woman as norm” assumption, as well as by “shifting the axis” and “pivoting the center” (Mohanty, 1991) so that previously devalued or marginalized perspectives about transnational women are centralized. By centralizing the study of women who have experienced colonization and multiple intersectionalities, biased lenses or assumptions, which are often invisible to mental health professionals, can be dismantled. It is then possible to gain more complete knowledge about the lives of all women, including women with higher levels of privilege and power and those with limited power. Decolonized views then move us from knowledge to activism, advocacy, and restoration. A decolonized psychology recognizes that research and practice that pursues the healing and empowerment of disenfranchised people are political acts.

Creating and Sustaining Egalitarian Collaborative Partnerships and Alliances

Transnational activism networks are designed to support effective and egalitarian alliances (Moghadam, 2015). Equity-based alliances support shared envisioning, implementation, ownership, and dissemination between collaborators (Fine, 2013). Similarly, egalitarian collaborative partnerships among scholars in psychology help to ensure that perspectives and voices that are frequently marginalized are centralized. These partnerships are based on respect for differences as well as similarities across regions and boundaries and attentive to the diverse priorities and perspectives that promote liberation. However, historic power differences between women from the Global North and Global South are difficult to erase and contribute to challenges in forming and maintaining egalitarian partnerships. For example, Hernandez-Wolfe & Acevedo (2020) have invested substantial efforts to produce collaborative partnerships with indigenous women in Colombia, but have also found that the larger political context and resources associated with U.S. academic establishments can subtly reinforce or maintain power differences. Global power dynamics can interfere with efforts to create mutually enriching collaborations, and local partners are often inclined to defer to partners from the Global North. To avoid the automatic tendency for Minority World partners to fall into “expert” roles, vigilance and clear procedures for ensuring egalitarian partnerships are often necessary (Norsworthy, 2017). Because of past abuses of power, feminists from the Minority World may also be viewed with suspicion, as representatives of colonial or militaristic regimes and/or as persons who are inclined to impose their standards on persons in the Global South.

In emergency situations, mental health professionals from the Global North sometimes operate as parachutists who provide humanitarian “helicopter aid” in times of crisis, may offer services without regard for a local community’s values and context, and, in some cases, may perpetuate harm (Nicolas & Thompson, 2019; Wessells, 2009). In these cases, negative views of the Global North are reinforced. Other problems can arise when international students from the Global South complete their psychological education in the United States and become socialized and assimilated into Minority World psychological communities and worldviews. Assumptions about the superiority of scientific psychologies of the Global North may lead students from the Global South to absorb an uncritical acceptance of the dominant Minority-world approaches that permeate their curricula. When returning to their countries of origin, they may inadvertently reproduce power dynamics that can reinforce neocolonial attitudes (Duan et al., 2011).

We propose that optimal partnerships are based on long-term cultural immersion and commitments built on trust-building activities (Collins et al., 2019; Machizawa & Enns, 2015; Nicolas & Thompson, 2019; Norsworthy, 2017). Effective egalitarian collaborations are based on ongoing dialogue and reflection about the positionalities of partners, including how partners engage in power-sharing with each other and the persons with whom they work, as well as the assumptions and knowledge bases that influence their perspectives. As a specific example, Shapiro and Atallah-Gutiérrez (2020) describe their use of collaborative auto-ethnography to enhance their long-term collaboration and growth. Through regular dialogue, they deepen their self-awareness and experiences of reflexivity, process their reactions to crises and critical incidents, provide support and offer to heal each other, engage in a cross-disciplinary exploration of issues that inform their work, examine the influence of colonialism in their disciplines, consider the social justice implications of their teaching and clinical practice, and experience mutual affirmation of their approaches to transnational work.

Many articles in this volume are authored by long-term partners whose work has crossed borders. In many cases, partnerships include persons from both the Majority South and the Minority North and are based on long-term efforts to create egalitarian work relationships. In general, their interactions have also occurred in multiple cultural contexts, including the “home” contexts of all participants. Articles based on these collaborations focus on regions such as the Pan-African context (Thompson et al., 2020), Colombia (Hernandez-Wolfe & Acevedo, 2020), Sri Lanka (Abeyasekera & Marecek, 2020), Latin America (Chavez-Dueñas & Adames, 2020), Thailand (Chamsanit et al., 2020), and the Caribbean (Nicolas et al., 2020).

Centralizing Theories and Practices That Support Critical Consciousness and Change

Feminists who are informed by a transnational perspective are inspired by a wide range of interdisciplinary perspectives such as critical theory (Christopher et al., 2014), liberation and peace psychologies (Comas-Díaz, 2000; Comas-Díaz & Torres Rivera, 2020; Martín-Baró, 1994; Thompson, 2019), womanist and mujerista psychologies (Bryant-Davis & Comas-Díaz, 2016), multicultural feminist therapy (Bryant-Davis, 2019), education for critical consciousness (Freire & Macedo, 2000), decolonial and transnational feminisms (Collins et al., 2019; Mohanty, 2003), and indigenous women’s healing practices (Morgan-Consoli et al., 2018). A shared feature of all these approaches is their intent to centralize and underscore the perspectives and knowledge of those who have been marginalized. These perspectives also share a critique of dominant Minority World psychologies, embed their perspectives in ecological and social-structural dynamics, include conscientiousness-raising as a core feature, and offer tools for social action and change. Multicultural feminist approaches are closely related to transnational practice and represent additional resources. They are based on the following principles: (a) a commitment to egalitarian relationships in all aspects of practice; (b) an emphasis on definitions of issues and self-structures in ways that are meaningful and consistent with one’s values and worldview; (c) a commitment to cultural congruence or the use of tools that are built on cultural resources and decolonized approaches; and (d) an emphasis on sociopolitical awareness and intersectionality (Bryant-Davis & Moore-Lobban, 2019). As opposed to Minority World psychology which centers coping in response to trauma and oppression, these Majority World culturally emergent interventions centralize resistance to external forces of oppression as well as resistance to internalized oppression.

Specific interventions may be incorporated from feminist psychotherapies, multicultural therapies, and adaptations of mainstream psychotherapies described in the final article in this issue (Enns et al., 2020). However, prior to implementing strategies, a critical analysis of the assumptions and foundations and views of change and well-being within a context is essential (Christopher et al., 2014). Unfortunately, the therapeutic approaches from the Northern Minority world are often inconsistent with local values, norms, and ways of being. In some cases, community needs are inappropriately psychologized, resulting in a mismatch between community needs and interventions.

In contrast to the uncritical and unexamined ways in which Minority World models are often applied to Majority World regions, the Thai “web of oppression” for understanding intimate partner violence (IPV) offers a positive alternative (Chamsanit et al., 2020). This framework was developed and tested over multiple years of collaboration and consultation with many groups of Thai professionals who provide services in crisis centers. A participant action model was used to produce knowledge that incorporates Thai-based social, political, and cultural systems that contribute to and reinforce IPV. This approach and others discussed in this issue serve as models for other collaborative projects that decenter Majority World models and give voice to those who are less frequently represented within a psychological theory.

Concluding Thoughts

Transnational feminist psychology is still a young field, and the good news is that writings that integrate interdisciplinary transnational feminisms with professional psychology are growing in importance (Collins et al., 2019). The themes presented in this introductory article offer an overview or primer of key tenets from this interdisciplinary literature and link them to implications for feminist transnational practice in mental health fields. Our hope is that readers will use this as an initial framework and guide for reading articles in this special issue as well as for directing their further study of the rich and complex perspectives that characterize transnational feminisms in multiple fields of practice. At the end of special contributions to this special issue, we follow this initial commentary with a second article that builds on these topics and others. This second article offers more extensive commentary about implications for feminist transnational practice in psychology and focuses on three major domains discussed in social justice literature in psychology: attitudes, knowledge foundations, and interventions and skills. Creating and holding space for this sacred scholarship is an act of resistance to decolonize Minority World psychology and indigenize feminist psychology.

Further Reading

Baksh, R., & Harcourt, W. (Eds.). (2015). Oxford handbook of transnational feminist movements. Oxford University Press.

This handbook traces the development of transnational feminism and conveys the diversity, complexity, and contradictions within transnational feminisms. Its 35 chapters focus on diverse topics such as activism, human rights, peace movements, militarism, climate justice, economic justice, political participation, and health and well-being.

Collins, L. H., Machizawa, S., & Rice, J. K. (Eds.). (2019). Transnational psychology of women: Expanding international and intersectional approaches. American Psychological Association. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0000148-000

This volume presents a comprehensive discussion of transformational possibilities for forging a transnational psychology of women and contains chapters on foundational concepts, assessment and intervention implications, research practices, migration, intimate violence, reproductive experiences, and human trafficking. An extensive glossary of terms is also included.

Bryant-Davis, T., & Comas-Díaz, L. (Eds.). (2016). Womanist and mujerista psychologies: Voices of fire, acts of courage. American Psychological Association. http://10.1037/14937-000

This book centralizes the intersectional experiences of Latinas and African American women and emphasizes women’s strengths and spirituality that provide a foundation for self-definition, survival, coping, and wholeness. The book is based on interdisciplinary scholarship, offers a reaction to dominant feminisms, emphasizes global solidarity among women of color, and illustrates a variety of interventions designed to promote cultural healing.