Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Chandra Talpade Mohanty (b. 1955) is an important feminist theorist who associates herself most assertively in her writing with feminist struggles and the theory and politics informing those struggles. Nonetheless, it is fair to say that the vital contributions of Mohanty's feminist political thinking result from her writings' engagement with and emergence from the crossroads of many theoretical, political, and activist traditions, where, for example, Western feminist scholarship meets the historical realities of Third World women's lives and Third World anticolonial critiques; where feminist scholarship and the academy more broadly meet feminist political practice and struggles for eco-nomic and social justice more generally; and where a feminist politics must of necessity meet, inform, and transform into anticapitalist and antiglobalization struggles to realize its vision. While her work engages issues of economic and social justice on a global scale from what is arguably a profoundly historicized and deeply layered Third World Marxist feminist perspective, she is always clear that a feminist perspective centers her vision and that her work “is based on a deep belief in the power and significance of feminist thinking in struggles for economic and social justice” (2003: 1). Mohanty's influence and commitment as a feminist theorist were clearly established in her essay “Under Western ... log in or subscribe to read full text