Throughout the course we have covered topics that encompass gender, migration, transnational feminism, border imperialism, and much more. I have decided to use the opportunity to create a critical original blog entry to not only personally reflect upon and analyze some themes we have analyzed in the past 3 months, but also to connect them to my future activism as a feminist taking a transnational feminist perspective.
We (“we” meaning our class. I learned it is important to clarify our “we’s”) began this course by asking ourselves what a global sisterhood means to us. We came out with the conclusion that a true transnational feminist perspective rejects the concept of a global sisterhood. In all honesty, before taking this course, the terms transnational feminism and global sisterhood were not part of my vocabulary. However, right from the beginning I came to understand the simple answer as to why a transnational feminist perspective rejects the idea of a global sisterhood; because it not only denies different historical contexts of women, but it equates all women’s experience as one in the same. I now understand that if I am going to be a useful feminist that takes a transnational feminist perspective, I need to analyze the simultaneous content/context of experiences as it affects women differently around the world.
I learned that migration is facilitated. When people think about migration they often think merely about an individual decision to move. However, migration is facilitated by countless uncontrollable factors that are not adequately represented. That is, migration is severely simplified in media when it is actually incredibly complex. Before taking this course and looking deeper into the purposes for migration, I too had a limited understanding of migration from the restricted view of the media. The media shows a one-dimensional image of migration when it is a multidimensional ever-changing process. To conclude my entry I want to point out one of the more inspiring features of migration that I came to understand from taking this class. That is, the idea of strategic migration. Strategic migration shows me that migration is not always a story of survival and victimhood. Migration can also be a story of agency and empowerment.
Keywords: personal reflection, transnational feminism, migration, sisterhood, agency
Author: Randy Rudolf
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