Millie Thayer - Böcker

This ethnographic study examines the transnational relations among feminist movements at the end of the twentieth century, exploring two differently situated women’s organizations in the Northeast Brazilian state of Pernambuco. The conventional narrative of globalization tells the story of inexorable forces beyond the capacity of individuals to mute or transcend. But this study tells a different story, one of social actors purposefully weaving cross-border relationships. From this vantage point, global social forces are not immaculately conceived. Instead, they are constituted by human actors with their own interests and identities, located in particular social contexts. Making Transnational Feminism takes what some have called "global civil society" as its object, moving beyond both dire predictions and euphoric celebrations to understand how transnational political relationships are constructed and sustained across social and geographical divides. It also provides a compelling case study for use in advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in globalization, gender studies, and social movements.

This ethnographic study examines the transnational relations among feminist movements at the end of the twentieth century, exploring two differently situated women’s organizations in the Northeast Brazilian state of Pernambuco. The conventional narrative of globalization tells the story of inexorable forces beyond the capacity of individuals to mute or transcend. But this study tells a different story, one of social actors purposefully weaving cross-border relationships. From this vantage point, global social forces are not immaculately conceived. Instead, they are constituted by human actors with their own interests and identities, located in particular social contexts. Making Transnational Feminism takes what some have called "global civil society" as its object, moving beyond both dire predictions and euphoric celebrations to understand how transnational political relationships are constructed and sustained across social and geographical divides. It also provides a compelling case study for use in advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in globalization, gender studies, and social movements.

In this follow-up to the highly successful "Ethnography Unbound", Michael Burawoy and nine colleagues break the bounds of conventional sociology, to explore the mutual shaping of local struggles and global forces. In contrast to the lofty debates between radical theorists, these nine studies excavate the dynamics and histories of globalization by extending out from the concrete, everyday world. The authors were participant observers in diverse struggles over extending citizenship, medicalizing breast cancer, dumping toxic waste, privatizing nursing homes, the degradation of work, the withdrawal of welfare rights, and the elaboration of body politics. From their insider vantage points, they show how groups negotiate, circumvent, challenge, and even re-create the complex global web that entangles them. Traversing continents and extending over three years, this collaborative research developed its own distinctive method of 'grounded globalization' to grasp the evaporation of traditional workplaces, the dissolution of enclaved communities, and the fluidity of identities.Forged between the local and global, these compelling essays make a powerful case for ethnography's insight into global dynamics.

Translocalities/Translocalidades is a path-breaking collection of essays on Latin American, Caribbean, and United States–based Latina feminisms and their multiple translations and cross-pollinations. The contributors come from countries throughout the AmÉricas and are based in diverse disciplines, including media studies, literature, Chicana/o studies, and political science. Together, they advocate a hemispheric politics based on the knowledge that today, many sorts of Latin/o-americanidades-Afro, queer, indigenous, feminist, and so on-are constructed through processes of translocation. Latinidad in the South, North and Caribbean "middle" of the AmÉricas, is constituted out of the intersections of the intensified cross-border, transcultural, and translocal flows that characterize contemporary transmigration throughout the hemisphere, from La Paz to Buenos Aires to Chicago and back again. Rather than immigrating and assimilating, many people in the Latin/a AmÉricas increasingly move back and forth between localities, between historically situated and culturally specific, though increasingly porous, places, across multiple borders, and not just between nations. The contributors deem these multidirectional crossings and movements, and the positionalities engendered, translocalities/translocalidades.Contributors. Sonia E. Alvarez, Kiran Asher, Victoria (Vicky) M. BaÑales, Marisa Belausteguigoitia Rius, Maylei Blackwell, Cruz C. Bueno, Pascha Bueno-Hansen, Mirangela Buggs, Teresa Carrillo, Claudia de Lima Costa, Isabel Espinal, VerÓnica Feliu, Macarena GÓmez-Barris, Rebecca J. Hester, Norma Klahn, AgustÍn Lao-Montes, Suzana Maia, MÁrgara MillÁn, Adriana Piscitelli, Ana Rebeca Prada, Ester R. Shapiro, Simone Pereira Schmidt, Millie Thayer

Translocalities/Translocalidades is a path-breaking collection of essays on Latin American, Caribbean, and United States–based Latina feminisms and their multiple translations and cross-pollinations. The contributors come from countries throughout the AmÉricas and are based in diverse disciplines, including media studies, literature, Chicana/o studies, and political science. Together, they advocate a hemispheric politics based on the knowledge that today, many sorts of Latin/o-americanidades-Afro, queer, indigenous, feminist, and so on-are constructed through processes of translocation. Latinidad in the South, North and Caribbean "middle" of the AmÉricas, is constituted out of the intersections of the intensified cross-border, transcultural, and translocal flows that characterize contemporary transmigration throughout the hemisphere, from La Paz to Buenos Aires to Chicago and back again. Rather than immigrating and assimilating, many people in the Latin/a AmÉricas increasingly move back and forth between localities, between historically situated and culturally specific, though increasingly porous, places, across multiple borders, and not just between nations. The contributors deem these multidirectional crossings and movements, and the positionalities engendered, translocalities/translocalidades.Contributors. Sonia E. Alvarez, Kiran Asher, Victoria (Vicky) M. BaÑales, Marisa Belausteguigoitia Rius, Maylei Blackwell, Cruz C. Bueno, Pascha Bueno-Hansen, Mirangela Buggs, Teresa Carrillo, Claudia de Lima Costa, Isabel Espinal, VerÓnica Feliu, Macarena GÓmez-Barris, Rebecca J. Hester, Norma Klahn, AgustÍn Lao-Montes, Suzana Maia, MÁrgara MillÁn, Adriana Piscitelli, Ana Rebeca Prada, Ester R. Shapiro, Simone Pereira Schmidt, Millie Thayer

The contributors to Beyond Civil Society argue that the conventional distinction between civic and uncivic protest, and between activism in institutions and in the streets, does not accurately describe the complex interactions of forms and locations of activism characteristic of twenty-first-century Latin America. They show that most contemporary political activism in the region relies upon both confrontational collective action and civic participation at different moments. Operating within fluid, dynamic, and heterogeneous fields of contestation, activists have not been contained by governments or conventional political categories, but rather have overflowed their boundaries, opening new democratic spaces or extending existing ones in the process. These essays offer fresh insight into how the politics of activism, participation, and protest are manifest in Latin America today while providing a new conceptual language and an interpretive framework for examining issues that are critical for the future of the region and beyond.Contributors. Sonia E. Alvarez, Kiran Asher, Leonardo Avritzer, Gianpaolo Baiocchi, Andrea Cornwall, Graciela DiMarco, Arturo Escobar, Raphael Hoetmer, Benjamin Junge, Luis E. Lander, AgustÍn LaÓ-Montes, Margarita LÓpez Maya, JosÉ Antonio Lucero, Graciela Monteagudo, Amalia Pallares, Jeffrey W. Rubin, Ana Claudia Teixeira, Millie Thayer

The contributors to Beyond Civil Society argue that the conventional distinction between civic and uncivic protest, and between activism in institutions and in the streets, does not accurately describe the complex interactions of forms and locations of activism characteristic of twenty-first-century Latin America. They show that most contemporary political activism in the region relies upon both confrontational collective action and civic participation at different moments. Operating within fluid, dynamic, and heterogeneous fields of contestation, activists have not been contained by governments or conventional political categories, but rather have overflowed their boundaries, opening new democratic spaces or extending existing ones in the process. These essays offer fresh insight into how the politics of activism, participation, and protest are manifest in Latin America today while providing a new conceptual language and an interpretive framework for examining issues that are critical for the future of the region and beyond.Contributors. Sonia E. Alvarez, Kiran Asher, Leonardo Avritzer, Gianpaolo Baiocchi, Andrea Cornwall, Graciela DiMarco, Arturo Escobar, Raphael Hoetmer, Benjamin Junge, Luis E. Lander, AgustÍn LaÓ-Montes, Margarita LÓpez Maya, JosÉ Antonio Lucero, Graciela Monteagudo, Amalia Pallares, Jeffrey W. Rubin, Ana Claudia Teixeira, Millie Thayer

Transnational Feminist Itineraries brings together scholars and activists from multiple continents to demonstrate the ongoing importance of transnational feminist theory in challenging neoliberal globalization and the rise of authoritarian nationalisms around the world. The contributors illuminate transnational feminism's unique constellation of elements: its specific mode of thinking across scales, its historical understanding of identity categories, and its expansive imagining of solidarity based on difference rather than similarity. Contesting the idea that transnational feminism works in opposition to other approaches-especially intersectional and decolonial feminisms-this volume instead argues for their complementarity. Throughout, the contributors call for reaching across social, ideological, and geographical boundaries to better confront the growing reach of nationalism, authoritarianism, and religious and economic fundamentalism.Contributors. Mary Bernstein, Isabel Maria CortesÃo Casimiro, Rafael de la Dehesa, Carmen L. Diaz Alba, Inderpal Grewal, Cricket Keating, Amy Lind, Laura L. Lovett, Kathryn Moeller, Nancy A. Naples, Jennifer C. Nash, Amrita Pande, Srila Roy, Cara K. Snyder, Ashwini Tambe, Millie Thayer, Catarina Casimiro Trindade