Bridging the academic/activist divide: Feminist activism and the teaching of global politics

Millennium: Journal of International Studies

Volumn 35, Issue 1, 2006, Pages 119-137

  Eschle, Catherine ^a   Maiguashca, Bice ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF STRATHCLYDE   (United Kingdom)

^b UNIVERSITY OF EXETER   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33847081202     PISSN: 03058298     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/03058298060350011101     Document Type: Article

References (36)

1. We would like to thank Mireille Thornton, Anna Stavrianakis and Eric. Herring for their feedback on an earlier draft of this article. Thanks are also due to the Nuffield Foundation, the British Academy and the ESRC for funding the research on which this article is based, and to the translators that helped us on location. Our biggest debt is to the interviewees whose words and practices we discuss here. They gave their time generously to us and their activities remain an inspiration.
2. This phrase, originating with Gerrard Winstanley of the seventeenth-century Diggers, was emblazoned outside the eco-camp in Stirling at which protestors gathered during the G8 summit at Gleneagles, July 2005. See Shut them Down! The G8, Gleneagles 2005 and the Movement of Movements (Leeds and Brooklyn: Dissent and Autonomedia, 2005).
3. For a defence of the academic/activist distinction drawing on several of these dichotomies, see Stanley Fish, 'Why we Built the Ivory Tower', New York Times 1 June 2004, online at http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ ReadArticle.asp?ID=13 593.
4. For more critical interrogations, see Lisa Yun Lee, 'Who's Afraid of Theory?', June 2004, online at http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/ article/161/
5. and Lisa Featherstone et al., 'Action will be Taken: Left Anti-Intellectualism and its Discontents', online at http://www.lipmagazine.org/articles/featfeatherstone_activistismp.shtml.
6. Interview, Dublin, 12/7/04.
7. We acknowledge that the label of 'anti-globalisation' is rejected by many activists; indeed some find it wholly objectionable although many still use it strategically. Different names have emerged in different contexts, including' critical globalisation', 'alternative globalisation' and 'global justice'. We also note that the label of 'feminist' is problematic for some of our interviewees, particularly those in India. So it should be stressed that 'feminist "anti-globalisation" activism' is our short-hand for activism which combines opposition to gender-based oppression or inequality with a critique of the unaccountable power of corporations, financial institutions and Western states; the neoliberal trade policies that foster it; and its economic, social and environmental consequences.
8. Thus we do not offer a review of pedagogical literature produced by academic feminists, though many of their arguments resonate with those made here; see, for example, Penny Welch, 'Is a Feminist Pedagogy Possible?' in Changing the Subject: Women in Higher Education, eds. Jocey Quin et al. (London: Taylor and Francis, 1994), 149-62,
9. and Berenice Malka Fisher, No Angel in the Classroom: Teaching Through Feminist Discourse (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000).
10. See, for example, Robert Pithers and Rebecca Soden, 'Critical Thinking in Education: A Review', Educational Research, vol. 42, no. 3 (2000): 237-49;
11. also John Cowan, On Becoming an Innovative University Teacher: Reflection in Action (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1998), ch.3.
12. Feminists have long made this criticism with regard to adding on women or gender to courses that remain otherwise unchanged. See, e.g., Laura Shepherd and Christina Rowlands, 'The Week on Gender: Feminists Teaching IR', paper presented at The Space Between: Theorising Gender in IR and IPE, 1-2 June 2006, University of Bristol.
13. See, for example. Paul Ramsden, Learning to Teach in Higher Education (London: Routledge 1992), chs. 2 and 7.
14. Passive and shallow or surface learning is widely and unfavourably contrasted to active and deep or higher level learning in the pedagogical literature, see, for example, Ramsden, Learning to Teach, ch. 4;
15. Michael Prosser and Keith Trigwell, Understanding Learning and Teaching: The Experience in Higher Education (Buckingham: Open University Press, 2002), ch. 2.
16. Mariya Y. Omelicheva, 'Global Politics on Trial: Using Educational Debate for Teaching Controversies of World Affairs,' International Studies Perspectives, vol. 7, no. 2 (2006): 178.
17. The 'facilitative teacher' is contrasted favourably to the 'authoritarian' or 'instructional' model of teaching in Cowan, On Becoming an Innovative University Teacher, 48.
18. Interview, Rio de Janeiro, 12/1/05 (translation).
19. Interview, Porto Alegre, 29/1/05.
20. Interview with Kalpana Kannabiran, Hyderabad, 10/1/04.
21. From undated flyer titled 'Akshara' picked up at Feminist Dialogues, Porto Alegre, January 2005.
22. Ibid.;
23. 'Akshara: an NGO's profile', online at http://www.naaritoday.com/ womensnetwork/ngos/akshara.html;
24. and the entry for Akshara on 'NGOs in India (Women)', online at http://www.indianchild.com/women_ngos_in_india.htm (both accessed 15/6/05).
25. Interview, Hyderabad, 10/1/04.
26. Interview, Paris, 14/09/03.
27. Interview, Hyderabad, 8/1/04.
28. Interview, São Paulo, 17/1/05 (translation).
29. Interview, Paris, 14/09/03.
30. Ibid.
31. Interview, Dublin, 10/7/04.
32. Interview, São Paulo, 17/1/05 (translation).
33. Interview, Porto Alegre 29/1/05.
34. Several of Bice's third-year students recently took the initiative of producing a short film as part of their assessed group presentation.
35. See, for example, Eric Herring's discussion of the establishment of NASPIR in this forum. Catherine participated in a series of workshops in 2004 organised by Sian Sullivan, then of the Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation at Warwick University, aimed at developing activist/academic crossover in terms of ideas, reading and support. Sian has also been involved in the 'Radical Theory Forum': initiative;
36. see her 'Radical Theory Workshop the 2nd European Social Forum: Some Notes', online at http://www.euromovements.info/html/ sian-radicaltheory.htm.