全球化與理論旅行

用戶評論 (總計1條)

•   　　It is a little bit weird to use English to write this book review. Because some chapters of this book are a comprehensive Chinese review of western literature which means a lot of translations in the writing. And my book review has to translate her Chinese writing into English again. The double translations may cause some misreading or wrong translation of certain words. However, as Jack told me, I should practice my English writing if I decide to write my thesis in English and expect it to be read by English readers. So I will give it a try.
  　　
  　　In the introduction, Min explained the origins of this book. When she went back to China in 1999 for field work, her research still adopted the binary framework of 1980s: how the western feminism influence China and how it was localized. But her field turned out that, all the interviewed researchers had various International experiences. Globalization had changed the center-periphery in China, and the relationship between the local and the global greatly. Since that time, Globalization became her main academic concern. And several years later, when she came back to China as a university teacher, she found that on one hand, the academy embraced the mainstream globalization without any critique, while on the other hand, it ignored alternative transnational movements, which she hardly agree with and want to debate in this book by discussing the problems in knowledge production of transnational feminism.
  　　
  　　A basic question is behind every article in the book, that is, what is globalization, and what is the relationship between the local and the global. During her study, she found that, the literature about globalization was uncountable while that of localization was not. The discourse of globalization itself contained an unequal relationship. The mainstream /major former emphasized on the aspect of politics and economy, eg. how the transnational corporations challenge and treat the status of nation-state. The marginalized / alternative latter was mainly from NGOs in developing countries, and post-colonialism and feminism in developed countries, who added localization, women, and poverty into the discussion of globalization and broke the binary of global/local and center/periphery. However, I don't agree with the terms Min used to describe these two: “winner” and “l(fā)oser”, even they were in double quotation marks. The best way to break the binary distinction is to discard those binary terms rather than continue using them even in a critical way.
  　　
  　　She reviewed the arguments from Appadurai and Santos, and concluded that the imbalance and discrepancy between the globalization of knowledge and the knowledge of globalization requires the establishment of new researches on the globalization from bottom to top and a paradigm shift of the model of knowledge production to break the dualism, to establish a plural epistemology, and in addition, the knowledge production should be empirical which means the knowledge should include not only academia, but also social movements, activities of NGOs etc.
  　　
  　　Under the theme of the problems in knowledge production of transnational feminism, there are several variations:
  　　
  　　First, how to understand the relationship between the global and the local. As already mentioned before, she pointed out that the mainstream discourse of globalization is about the flow of capital, the development of ICTs, and the operation of TNCs, while women, the disadvantaged and minorities are marginalized. In regard of the area of gender studies, there are a lack of the reviews and critiques of globalization from the perspective of feminism, and the empirical study of globalization and gender/women. She reviewed two opposite concepts: the space of flows and the space of places, and their connections: the hegemony of neo-liberal globalization claims the separation of the two, and the subordination of the latter to the former, which Min strongly opposed. She suggested to break this dualism to see the different influence of the space of flows to different locations and social groups, the activities of the local, the specific practice of human being in society, and the power relationship behind, which she held as the key to reflect on the process of globalization. Only on this basis, can we see the connection between globalization and women/gender.
  　　
  　　Second, the shift from global feminism to transnational feminism. It is really interesting for me to read the brief history of The United Nations World Conference on Women and its relation with the practice of global feminism. From Mexico City(1975), Copenhagen(1980), Nairobi(1985) to Beijing(1995), the four conferences witnessed the emergence of transnational network of feminism movement and the changes of the idea of global feminism. As I also reviewed the problematic global sisterhood which claims that women can make coalition without considering the differences of race, class, nationalities, sexuality etc to resist the universal patriarchy. And in response to the critiques of global feminism, politics of location(Rich,1987) and situated knowledge(Haraway, 1988) were raised by feminists to rethink and rediscover the importance of historical and social practices in specific locations. The discussion of transnational feminism replaced that of global feminism, and by using the “transnational”, the inequality of flows during the process of globalization can be revealed(Grewal & Kaplan, 1994). However, I think transnational is still problematic, and as I suggested in my literature review, nation-state as the unit of analysis is still nation-centered. In comparison, translocalism is better to understand the complex globalization process of feminism. Instead of the center-periphery, western-nonwestern, the global North-South view of Cultural Imperialism, tranlocalism is a network view of periphery-periphery connection (e.g. nonwestern vs nonwestern, South-to-South). Thus this new view enables an understanding of the local–global dialectic through the comparative study of multiple locales by adopting multisited ethnography.
  　　
  　　Third, how theories travel globally. Min reviewed the literature of post-colonialism and feminism on traveling theory, and raised her own questions: 1. what is the motivations behind traveling theory(when, where, who and why)?2. Said's model of traveling theory is too linear, what changes will happen when the routine of traveling becomes complex? These questions link traveling theory from post-colonialism to "politics of location" from feminism. Min wanted to view the production of theories as a process rooted in specific time, space and place. She criticized the fetish of masters and trends in theory reception, and the lack of the sense of questions and the ignorance of theories from the black, minorities and third-world. Her combination of traveling theory and politics of location calls for the critical thinking of positioning theories in the process of globalization, which requires mapping the routine of traveling theories, analyze the material factors and motivations of traveling theory, and what's more, draw a new map of knowledge production of transnational feminism.
  　　
  　　Fourth, the politics of translation. Again, it is really inspiring for me to read Min's recall on why she got this idea, or how she generated her research questions from her own life experiences. That really matters. Because as her reflection on the discourses of globalization and the process of translation, unequal power relationship behind was unexamined or take-for-granted, which will help reproducing the existing hierarchy. In chapter 4-7, she treated translation not only a problem of techniques, but also a problem of epistemology and methodology, which corresponds to the combination of Walter Benjamin's the task of the translator and the cultural turn. She discussed several important issues in translation: equivalence, translatability and untranslatability of culture, faithful and faithless translation, the criteria of translation, the definition of cultural translation, and the role of translator. Then she took "feminism" and "gender" as two cases to illustrate how translators in different historical periods and different social positions articulated and negotiated the meanings of feminism(eg. 女權(quán)主義 VS女性主義 in China), and how certain concept encounter with different contexts of locations(eg. Different acceptance and influence of gender theories in North Europe and Latin America).
  　　
  　　This book inspired me a lot in several ways:
  　　First, three topics of her book which I reviewed: how to understand the relationship between the global and the local, how theories travel globally, and the politics of translation, can also be applied to “the circuit of culture”(du Gay et al. ,1997), which in my case, the global traveling of The Vagina Monologues.
  　　Second, her review on the shift from global feminism to transnational feminism, can be furthered by adding the perspectives of translocalism and meshwork (she introduced the concept of meshwork in chapter 9). Only by adopting this historical understanding of feminism, can I clearly understand the disputes around The Vagina Monologues.
  　　Third, the reason why we do research. The significance of a study should not only rely on the standard of academic criteria, but also its influence on social reality. And for the researchers themselves, their study should first answer the questions they encounter during their life rather than simply repeat others’ questions without any reflection (for example, we should first answer the questions located in the context of contemporary China).
  　　

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