University of Victoria

Potentialities of Feminist Research and Analysis: Future Reflections @ the Edge

The Congress theme, “@ the edge” describes the history of feminist scholarship, its needs and potentialities, (as the call suggests) “to centre the periphery both institutionally and socially, testing the boundaries of disciplines, promoting innovative thinking, seeking relevance to both local and global communities, and committing to engaged scholarship and knowledge mobilization." The theme shares feminist concerns with "challenges of inequality, the need for inclusivity, … the acceptance of diversity [and] … intentional solutions that will address the diverse marginalizations" of women still located at the edges where some individuals and groups are creatively inventing new ways. Some scholars argue that after 20 years of accelerated but largely invisible new forms of patriarchy, feminists are even more @ the edge. At last year's CSA session on feminist potentialities and solidarities in the academy, communities, and social movements which highlighted indigenous feminist research, community-based research and integrative feminist research, diverse participants began a profound and innovative discussion that encouraged calls for another session. This session invites presentations that continue and deepen feminist understandings and that bring diverse feminist perspectives and experiences to this discussion of the challenges and relevance of feminist social analysis in varied contexts.

Session Chairs: Christine St. Peter (CRIAW) and Marleny Bonnycastle (CASWE)

This session is co-sponsored by the following associations;

Canadian Committee on Women’s History/ Comité canadien de l'histoire des femmes (CCWF/CCHF –part of CHA/SHC)
Canadian Association for the Study of Women and Education/Association canadienne pour l’étude sur les femmes et l’éducation (CASWE /ACÉFÉ)
Canadian Association for Social Work Education/Association canadienne pour la formation en travail social (CASWE/ACFTS)
Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women/Institut canadien de recherche sur les femmes (CRIAW/ICREF)

Session Organizer: Marleny Bonnycastle, University of Manitoba, marleny.bonnycastle@ad.umanitoba.ca ; Linda Christiansen Ruffman, Saint Mary's University, lindacruffman@yahoo.ca ; Ann Denis, University of Ottawa, adenis@uottawa.ca ; Nancy Janovicek, University of Calgary, njanovic@ucalgary.ca ; Catherine McGregor, University of Victoria, cmcgreg@uvic.ca

Feminist Scholarly Roadblocks and Potentialities: Grounded Reflections from Around the Edges.

Linda Christiansen Ruffman, Saint Mary's University, lindacruffman@yahoo.ca

While most papers in the sessions on Potentialities of Feminist Research, both last year and this year, point to the uses of feminist research to communities of diverse types (and most of my research has focused attention in this direction), this paper reflects on the significance of feminist research for scholarship more generally.

The analysis is based on a comparison of two bodies of my previous research - feminist research that, it turns out, is on several very different edges - and a recent 6 year international project with 12 scholars from different disciplines that focuses overall on the historical development of the modern world system; mine is the only study focused on the domain of women and gender. I found that the findings of this analysis in the context of contemporary feminist scholarship and scholarship in general were initially surprising and warrant discussion within an interdisciplinary feminist setting.

Tuesday June 4, 2013 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM Building: Elliott Building, Room: E-168

‘Feminicidio and Due Diligence: On the Mobilization of Feminist Knowledge, State Responsibility, and Human Rights Practices’

Paulina Garcia-Del Moral, Department of Sociology, University of Toronto, p.garciadelmoral@utoronto.ca

Feminicidio is a term coined by Latin American feminist scholars and human rights activists engaged in the combat of violence against women in the region. Salient in this concept is the notion of state responsibility for systemic gendered violence that results in women’s deaths, whether at the hands of private or state actors. The notion of state responsibility for the actions of private individuals is also at the core of the principle of due diligence in international human rights law. This paper examines the meeting of the concept of feminicidio and the principle of due diligence as part of a broader transnational movement that has constructed violence against women as a human rights violation. In particular, the paper focuses on the feminist human rights scholars and activists’ mobilization of these concepts in the case of González and others (“Cotton Field”) vs. Mexico at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which established that Mexico had failed to prevent, punish, and properly investigate the deaths of women in Ciudad Juárez. I analyze the meeting of feminicidio and due diligence in this case as an example of the ways in which feminist work can be applied empirically strength of human rights practices in Latin America.

Tuesday June 4, 2013 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM Building: Elliott Building, Room: E-168

Anti-globalization, Indigenous Sovereignty and Women’s Liberation: The Potentials of Feminist Research and Vision in a Period of Occupy and Idle No More

Angela Miles, University of Toronto, angela.miles@utoronto.ca

For the past forty (!) years, locally and globally, feminist scholars and activists have critiqued and challenged patriarchal policies and ways of thinking and relating that breed conflict and economic violence in an increasingly divided world. Transformative feminist perspectives envision a transformed world and political practice based on egalitarian, life‑sustaining, co-operative, and just social relationships, and cultural as well as environmental diversity.

Current social and economic crises, and threats of permanent war and ecological disaster are increasing the urgency and importance of alternative and visionary thinking. At the same time, growing popular and Indigenous resistance in Canada and globally is increasing its possibility. This paper will identify

- which, if any, transformative principles feminism shares with elements of the Occupy movement and Idle No More;

- whether and in what different ways, if any, the anti-patriarchal nature of such principles and the possibility and potential of women’s leadership in these multi-faceted struggles is understood and acknowledged in the varying forms of growing mass mobilization in this period.

Tuesday June 4, 2013 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM Building: Elliott Building, Room: E-168