The Identity Politics of Postcolonial Feminism: Strategies of Essentialism

by Mridula Nath Chakraborty

Overview

The rise of identity politics in post-Civil Rights Anglo-North America was marked by intense debate in the university and public space about the valency of competing identities in the new America that was taking shape due to changing migration policies. The historically unresolved tension between Black and White constituencies was complicated further due to the entry of bodies from the newly independent, decolonized third world nations who did not share the same racial and cultural lineage. At the same time, feminism permeated every sphere of intellectual and social life, giving rise to second-wave questions around who constituted the true subject of feminism. Postcolonial feminists interrogated the idea of an essentialised ‘Woman’ who was implicated in the twin strands of race and nation that identified mainstream feminisms. The Identity Politics of Postcolonial Feminism traces the evolution of postcolonial feminism from its situated, located, ‘third world’ avatar to its current free-floating reincarnation as transnational feminism in the age of mobility and identity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781785278495
Publisher:	Anthem Press
Publication date:	09/09/2025
Pages:	250
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Mridula Nath Chakraborty is a literary critic, postcolonial feminist theorist and cultural studies scholar.

Table of Contents

Preface; 1. Introduction: Hotfooting Around Essentialism: A Retrospective Account; 2. Outside in the House of Colour: A Second Look at Postcolonial and Transnational Feminisms via Chandra Talpade Mohanty and Inderpal Grewal; 3. Thinking through Visibility: Two ‘Minority’ Feminists in Canada: Himani Bannerji and Sherene H. Razack; 4. Everybody’s Afraid of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak! Interviewing the Postcolonial Critic/Strategic Feminist/Native Informant; Conclusion: Sites of Contention: At the Movies, in the Classroom and at the Conferences.