‘Internationalism’ and ‘Transnationalism’ in China’s International Women’s Day 1924-1945
| Datum | dinsdag 11 september 2012 |
|---|---|
| Tijd | 15:30 – 17:00 uur |
| Faculteit | Geesteswetenschappen |
| Locatie | Gravensteen (zaal 111), Pieterskerkhof 6 |
Arguments about the utility of “internationalism” and “transnationalism” have preoccupied scholars of global activism since the mid 1990s. This paper intersects in these debates by exploring International Women’s Day (IWD) in China during the first half of the twentieth century. Where most scholarship attempting to theorize global activism concentrates on the contemporary scene, this article looks back in time. It shows that at the start of the 20th century the term “international” was already showing signs of operating in ways that would invite critique in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. From the outset, IWD in China was drawn into party-political agendas that impacted its capacity to advance women’s rights as a global campaign.
Specifically, the paper explores the processes of cooption and subsumption that have diminished the “international” in IWD and argues that these harnessing processes are inevitable in the bureaucratization of popular social movements in national and nationalistic contexts and during periods of militarized violence. It also reveals the mechanisms through which women activists sought to leverage party-political interests, vanities and disputes to advance a pro-woman agenda through IWD initiatives. The paper draws on evidence from articles published in the women’s press as well as reports from media outlets aligned variously with the United Front, Guomindang and Communist Party.
Prof. Louise Edwards (Professor of Modern China Studies, University of Hong Kong) has degrees from Auckland (BA), Murdoch (BA Hons) and Griffith Universities (PhD). She is a Fellow of both the Australian Academy of Humanities and the Academy of the Social Sciences of Australia. From 2004-2009 Louise served as Convenor of the Australian Research Council’s Asia Pacific Futures Research Network.
She has held academic positions at the University of Queensland, Australian Catholic University, Australian National University and the University of Technology, Sydney where she lectured variously in China Studies, Chinese Language, Chinese History, Women’s Studies and Asian Studies.
Professor Edwards is currently working on a series of projects around gendered cultures of war in China. She maintains an active research interest in women in Asia, celebrity in China and the politics of dress.