Women’s Local and Translocal Responses: An Introduction to the Chapters

THE ORGANIZATION OF CHAPTERS IN WOMEN’S ACTIVISM AND GLOBALIZATION IS designed to highlight the multiple sites in and through which women are organizing in response to global economic and political restructuring. We begin at the site of the “local”—where grassroots organizers work in a community based setting or in tandem with transnational activists to effect changes in specific communities and in particular national and regional contexts (part 2 of the collection). We shift attention in part 3 to the work of transnational advocacy networks to explore how these “sites” link global politics with local struggles. We also show how national women’s movements and transnational networks draw on global discourses of human rights and economic justice to advance their organizing efforts. The case studies in part 4 examine how community activists and national women’s movement organizations draw on UN conferences and the transnational governmental organizations and economic institutions to improve the quality of life and press for social and political justice in local communities and national contexts.