Activisms: WSQ: Fall / Winter 2007 (Women's Studies Quarterly)

Activists may employ strategies from theater for social change to divestment to demonstration. They might rally in the thousands or pay for an abortion for one woman. Despite differences in method, activists seek to make the world a more just place. In this issue, contributors from Africa, Asia, Latin America, Australia, and other regions explore how many women (and men) struggle individually and collectively for social justice and gender equity, particularly in the global south.

The issue includes photo essays about US and South African performance art, an interview with renowned human rights activist Charlotte Bunch, and a discussion forum on 18th-century British feminist philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft. Articles, fiction, and poetry examine how art, humor, protest, transnational networks, and even detective novels promote progressive agendas. Contributors include Piya Chatterjee, Janet L. Finn, Susan Hanson, Fiona Kirkwood, and Ovadia Vargas—all finding ways to practice the feminisms they preach.

Dorothy L. Hodgson is professor of anthropology at Rutgers University. Hodgson researches gender, ethnicity, cultural politics, colonialism, nationalism, modernity, the missionary encounter, transnational organizing, and the indigenous rights movement. Her books include Once Intrepid Warriors. She is writing a book on the historical and contemporary dynamics of NGOs in Africa through a case study of the Maasai in Tanzania. Ethel C. Brooks is assistant professor of women's and gender studies and sociology at Rutgers University. She is interested in relations of gender, race, class, labor practices, citizenship, transnationality, and nation-state formations. She has written Unraveling the Garment Industry: Transnational Organizing and Women's Work. She is researching political economy, racializations, and post-September 11 Pakistani communities.