Postructuralism, Power And Third World Feminism

Abstract

The question here is, is the Third world women's movement just adopting western paradigms and foreclosing other avenues of conceptualising and strategising that are more indigenized, plural and progressively enlightening? Can the postmodern and poststructuralist world-view create waves or ripples, and thereby positioning Third World feminism in a particular context and outside the expectations of western feminism? The conclusion in this paper would say that the answers to the above questions are in the affirmative. In reaching such a conclusion the paper will discuss the current thinking about postmodernism and poststructuralism and pick up some of these ideational insights or gaps in analysing the Third World feminist swell. The purpose is not to accept or reject the poststructuralist world-view but to use it as an axis to generate thinking on the characteristics of power and nascent feminism in the non-western world. There are three expressions of feminism in the Third World today. At the level of political organizing the concentration is on achieving civil liberties, though Third World feminist movements do not necessarily have similar experiences as western feminism. Secondly, there is an expression of overt "surface resistance" that counter western assumptions about liberation, which at the outset appear to cow freedom, but is in itself empowering. Thirdly, an expression of female power in its banal and indigenised form which will inherently regulate and provide for sexual complementarity, but is weak and marginal as it will always be in competition with the more centred, legalistic and hegemonic powers. All three are important enough to constitute the consciousness that locates, rather than displaces feminist power in the Third World, though the efficacy of each expression in itself cannot be overemphasised.