Transnational Sphere of Feminist Disability Advocacy: Human Rights, Information, and Invisibility


Valérie Grand'Maison, University of Guelph

I draw from Keck and Sikkink’s (1998) transnational advocacy networks to understand how groups of women with disabilities negotiate meanings and strategies related to the eradication of violence against women with disabilities with differently situated actors. Informed by transnational feminist scholars, a transnational lens signals a recognition of the heterogeneity of the conditions in which differently situated women live and advocate for justice and rights, shaped by historical and ongoing global processes of capitalism and colonialism, which leads to uneven power dynamics across civil society organizations. As such, I examine if, how, and why groups of women with disabilities build relationships across nations and how they broker power relations with various stakeholders in order to construct the transnational sphere of feminist disability advocacy. Given the centrality of information generation and dissemination among transnational advocacy networks, a transnational analysis reveals how the conditions in which differently situated women with disabilities, as well as their lived experiences, knowledges, and needs, inform their strategies of mobilization against gendered violence and towards justice for women with disabilities. In this paper, I conducted a literature review of academic, civil society, and international organizations’ literature to map the construct of the transnational sphere of feminist disability advocacy. Disabled women and their organizations collaborate to promote their rights and justice at international events, including those organized by the UN, regional or global conferences on disability and/or women’s issues, and policy forums. These events are an opportunity to create alliances with other disabled women’s organizations, disability and/or women’s organizations, as well as network with government officials, academics, human rights advocates, etc. These transnational advocacy networks allow disabled women to not only share information about their lives to various stakeholders (government agencies and international institutions), they influence the agenda and commitments of these policy-makers (Keck and Sikkink 1998). These spaces include side events at the Conference of State Parties to the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (CRPD), where civil society organizations, governments, and UN institutions come together to raise awareness, share knowledges and strategies, and build capacity to promote the rights and justice of diverse women with disabilities. Scholarly research illustrate that many disabled women’s organizations at the national and transnational levels rely heavily on human rights instruments and related processes, such as the CRPD and CEDAW, to put pressure on their nation-states to protect the rights of women with disabilities. . Soldatic (2015) notes that this type of transnational activism reifies nation-states and fails to challenge the transnational processes that affect marginalized groups. This argument negates the sharing of ideas, skills, and knowledges between disabled women that takes place in these processes and can have significant impacts in their lives, as well as local, national, and transnational advocacy. Indeed, Sally Merry examines how human rights related to violence against women shape individual and collective identities (2003) and local claims for justice (2006). This project contributes to expanding understandings of transnational disability justice, especially related to the mobilization of human rights, and the exchange of information.

This paper will be presented at the following session: