Beyond the Global North South Divide: Contemporary Feminist Debates in South Asia

While there have been tensions at the governmental level between countries in South Asia, feminists and women's rights activists have always collaborated across those differences. Following a brief history of those collaborations, in this presentation I will focus on how neoliberal globalization, the emergence of religious fundamentalisms, and militarization and wars in the region have shaped feminist debates. In particular, I will focus on the work of SANGAT, South Asian Network for Gender Transformation that emerged in 1998 to bring together gender activists and trainers. Following its changing directions over the last twenty-one years provides insights into the innovative ways in which feminists in the Global South work across differences but also the ways in which their epistemologies and pedagogies are influenced and limited by those of feminists in the Global North, emphasizing the need for decolonizing feminist practices in the Global North and South.