Breaking through Knowledge Dissemination Barriers: An Activist Transnational Feminist Approach

As a representative of RC 32: Women in Society, I will articulate how we can build a critique about the dissemination of knowledge and take action towards dismantling its unequal dynamics from an activist transnational feminist perspective. Reflecting on two different action research projects that I developed, I will discuss how to navigate through and beyond the main channels of research circulation (scientific publication, conference presentations, civil society addresses, teaching, and research consultancy) and their dominant languages and styles with the purpose of breaking through the barriers that tend to reproduce social inequalities. A focus on ideology, discourse, language and praxis will exemplify that while intersecting inequalities abound, opportunities to resist and challenge are also plentiful. The application of an activist transnational feminist framework allows not only to uncover overlapping gender, sexual, racial, ethnic, class and other inequalities, but also to develop strategies for resistance across social, cultural, geographic, disciplinary, language and style boundaries. By bringing in examples from my studies about violence against Latina immigrants in the United States, and health histories of Ecuadorian migrants, I will share the multiple strategies utilized to close the gap between knowledge creation, knowledge dissemination and its conversion or translation into action for equality and justice.