Shahot - Glass

In Talking Visions: Multicultural Feminism in a Transnational Age, Ella Shohat works to disrupt the Eurocentric line of thinking by positing a new way of research involving a non-Western subject. Multicultural feminism is unique in that it highlights and reinforces the marriage between feminism and multiculturalism in an analysis that assesses the way the world is shaped by various master statuses. Through trying to ““transcend the narrow and often debilitating confines of identity politics on favor of a multicultural feminist politics of identification, affiliation, and social transformation,” Shohat attempts to escape binaries in order to seek how various social locations come into play, all at once.

Shohat’s very use of multicultural feminism serves as a means to disrupt the Eurocentric hegemony of knowledge – by using multicultural feminism, she is able to take into account the various things – race, gender, class, abilities – in a way in which they all compete with each other. In doing so, she avoids an “othering” gaze in which the non-Western subjects are those of a “third world.”

This is particularly useful to me in my research of health care, reproductive justice, and politics of motherhood, particularly in my examination of women’s health care and the push to create a radical feminist health care model by midwives. Midwives struggle to create a healthcare model that reflects the tenets of a radical feminist health care model; on the one hand the midwives must contend with their gendered profession in a patriarchal health care system. They must work to legitimize their form of health care, something that contends with the very tenets of the model of health care they work for. On the other hand, their races (predominantly white), class (predominantly upper middle), and genders (predominantly cisgender women), impact the care they can and do give to their patients. I must keep all of these “competing” factors forefront on my mind as I write about their work and the obstacles they face.

I particularly like the idea of activism in research, and drawing on all of the readings as one, being aware of who it is we are writing to. It is reminiscent of much of our readings this semester. How do we, as researchers, simultaneously “do activism” in our research while also being mindful of critiques found within said research? Is it our responsibility to highlight those critiques?