Global Border Crossings

Feminist Activists and Peace Workers Collaborating Across Cultures

Kathryn Norsworthy, Ellyn Kaschak

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781138108844
• eBook ISBN: 9781135713072
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This book brings together a group of feminist activists, psychologists, and peace workers from countries on every continent who describe how they apply global/transnational feminism in their activist peace and justice projects in the cultures and countries in which they live and work. The contributors, who are from different locations in the "global village", reflect on their engagement in Global South/North border crossings and partnerships, taking into consideration such variables as the gender, economic/class, ethnic, racial, political and imperializing/colonizing tensions inherent in the work. Authors discuss the feminist principles that guide their work, describe a project or set of projects illustrating how they apply feminist theory and practice, and reflect on the complexitites, tensions and conundrums inherent in negotiating cross-national feminist partnerships in research, practice, and activism.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Women & Therapy.

Introduction: Border Crossings: Feminist Activists and Peace Workers Collaborating across Cultures

KATHRYN L. NORSWORTHY

Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida

ELLYN KASCHAK

San Jose State University, San Jose, California

The aim of this book is to assemble the writings of a group of feminist activists, psychologists and peace workers, who are engaging in a variety of “border crossings.” We have been particularly interested in what they would have to say about their partnerships, collaborations and connections across the “great divides” of Global South and Global North.

OUR “HERSTORIES”: CHRONICLES FROM THE BORDERLANDS

As co-editors, we have been involved in our own trans-cultural activities and “border crossings” over the course of each of our careers. Thus, our “herstories”—the lessons learned and yet to be learned—and our joining with the struggles and challenges of our collaborators from other parts of the world, motivated us to take up this project.

Kathryn

A white U.S. academic and counseling psychologist with strong roots in feminist and liberation psychologies, I (co-editor, Kathryn Norsworthy) have spent the past thirteen years engaged in activist participant action research, feminist and social justice counselor education projects, and liberatory feminist peace building and leadership projects with women’s groups and mixed gender groups around South and Southeast Asia. From the beginning, I wrestled with the complexities and conundrums connected with my identities as a white Western psychologist involved in activism, education and research in the Global South. At the same time, I have had the good fortune to form a deep and lasting friendship and working relationship with Thai feminist activist, Ouyporn Khuankaew, who lives in northern Thailand and works consistently around the region. Ouyporn and I have written extensively about our efforts to develop a partnership with one another and with local project partners based on feminist liberation values of power-sharing, mutuality, and deep respect (Norsworthy & Khuankaew, 2004; 2006), as we have engaged in over 13 years of explicitly designated “decolonizing” activist work together around Southeast and South Asia and here in the United States. Included in our writings are descriptions of “difficult dialogues” in which we bring a power analysis to our own relationship with the intention of illuminating those problematic areas in which adjustments needed to be made so that we, as best we can, embody feminist values and principles in our collaborations with one another and with the groups with whom we work.

As I developed closer relationships with my local partners and collaborators, I became troubled by the stories I heard regarding their difficult experiences with Western ‘consultants,’ ‘trainers,’ and researchers who entered their territory as ‘experts’ on the lives and circumstances of local people. While struggling with my own privileged location and staying in ongoing dialogue with these friends about how to work in a power-sharing way, I was also aware of the expansionist internationalization movement in U.S. psychology. In 2001, I joined a self-assembled task force of feminist psychologists from committees of two divisions of the American Psychological Association (APA), the Division 35 (Psychology of Women) Global Issues Committee and the Division 52 (International Psychology) Committee on Women, to begin a dialogue in response to this building internationalization movement in APA. Led by Joy Rice and Mary Ballou, our activist group developed a position paper, “Cultural and Gender Awareness in International Psychology” (Rice & Ballou, 2002), critiquing the uncritical exportation of Western psychology to other parts of the world. We (Rice & Ballou, 2002) encouraged psychologists, especially U.S. psychologists, to be aware of our potential for U.S.-centered, disciplinary empire-building and to “become aware of and act differently from the historical processes of global imperialism and colonialism by committing to principles that help us understand and overcome oppressive attitudes and practices in dominant psychology transported internationally” (p. 1). The five principles include:

1. Understanding the experiences of individuals in diverse cultures and contexts.

2. Respect for pluralism based on differences.

3. Awareness and analysis of power.

4. Critical analysis of Western perspectives.

5. International and inter-disciplinary social-cultural perspectives.

The work continued, and in 2004, in collaboration with several APA Divisions, the task force successfully spearheaded APA Council’s passage of the “Resolution on Cultural and Gender Awareness in International Psychology” (American Psychological Association, 2004), a document developed based on the earlier position paper with widespread input from multiple organizations and APA divisions. The resolution guides U.S. psychologists to bring a decolonizing, critical consciousness to our international “border crossings.” Engaging in this project from start to finish over a three-year period offered me ongoing opportunities for continued reflections about when, if, and how to engage effectively in work outside one’s own country and cultures.

Influenced by the rich discussions and analyses connected to this project, Ouyporn and I continued our own dialogue about these issues and questions and began to incorporate what we came to refer to as “radical reflexivity” around issues of power, psychological colonization, privilege, domination, and subordination in our relationships with one another and with the participants of the projects in which we engaged (see Norsworthy & Khuankaew, 2006). We also began training second-generation ‘trainers” and consultants in Thailand and other parts of the region using our feminist liberatory methodology. Those trainers have now begun training a third generation and so it goes on.

Ellyn

I (co-editor, Ellyn Kaschak) have been involved in trans-cultural border crossing since the late 1960s when I began to conduct collaborative research projects with colleagues in Latin America. Early influences included liberation psychology, systems theory, and the newly developing feminist epistemologies and theories. These collaborations resulted in the development of the Latin American Sex Role Inventory (LASRI) (Kaschak & Sharratt, 1979) and other culturally grounded approaches to the issue of gender in Latin America. I have also co-taught feminist courses and delivered invited lectures in various universities in Costa Rica. Later I began training projects, perhaps most importantly training trainers to conduct groups for mostly indigenous women suffering from cancer, which has become an epidemic in Costa Rica since the introduction of industrial development and tourism, and about which I unfortunately have acquired experience and expertise which I never sought. Recently I also collaborated with colleagues in Eastern Europe and the former Yugoslavia (Sharratt & Kaschak, 1999) to develop models of reparative justice. Additionally I have consulted with scholars and activists working on the ground separated from me by these and other borders.

When I enter Costa Rica, as I do several times a year, I am asked what business I have there, although I now have a home there. I answer that I am a tourist, as it is the simplest way to navigate the long lines at customs. Anyway, what else could I say in 25 words or less to the bored, yet vigilant, border officer? When I return to the United States, I am greeted with “welcome home” by customs officials. They are both right and wrong.

In a very important sense, national boundaries are an arbitrary human invention, embedding history in geography and changing with various shifts in political and national power. For those of us who grew up on one side or another of the Iron Curtain, this metaphor became a material reality. Where are Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia today?

Crossing borders, in my mind, includes both the contextual and internal boundaries created and nurtured by the Western idea of the consistent and identifiable self. I have written elsewhere about the complexity and multiplicity of “identities” by which each of us is characterized. Such complexity far exceeds the two-dimensional construct of inter-sectionality. It is multi-dimensional and better served by the concept of “multiplicity.” I have also written of its protean quality; that is, the minute you try to pin down and define someone’s psychological or contextual identity (Kaschak, 1992; 2011), it shifts, if for no other reason than your observation (Razavy, 2011). The very definition of self and context is written in shifting sands.

Thus, I will not simply identify myself as an American, although I am one by birth and by choice. I will say no more than that the color of my skin is such that contemporary American society names me white. This was not so for my immigrant Jewish ancestors (Brodkin, 1999). My parents’ generation, with no change in skin color at all, slowly morphed into White people in the 1950s. I myself pass through the world with White privilege, where it is privileged, and endangered where it signals something other than privilege, which is increasingly the case. That I am a gendered female is equally visible and often endangers me further. Although I could continue for an article’s length with this analysis, I will consider only one more aspect of my own shifting and complex identity. I am bi-lingual and bicultural, but in the officially unrecognized direction. I have lived my adult life in the U.S. and in Costa Rica with my chosen or adopted family. I am illegitimate.

“But you look White,” people in the U.S. say when they hear me speak Spanish. “Who are you? What category do you occupy?” In Costa Rica, they identify me as a “gringa,” another identity that does not, in their minds, live side-by-side with speaking Spanish. Costa Rica has lagged just a bit behind the U.S. in another regard. There you cannot be a Jew and a Costa Rican, just as in the U.S. you cannot be a Latina and a White person. Who made up all these categories and boundaries and told us not to defy them? Who makes the rules and whose eyes are the “official eyes” we then incorporate into our cultural vision?

Even progressive feminist and multi-cultural movements have not questioned these categories sufficiently. How many times have I heard these assumptions given voice? Really one would be too many. “A Jew is a White person. An immigrant from Latin America is a person of color.” These typical comments reveal a conflating of nationality, ethnicity and race. And what of a Jewish immigrant from Latin America? Which identity trumps the others in the American mind?

Are all our minds colonized? If so, how do we proceed? I suggest, as a starting place, that we do not use categories unconsciously or unskilfully. We question as we speak. We participate in shifting alliances that make apparent the shifting categories. We accept that we all co-create what we then name “reality.” To complicate matters even more, these “identity codes” differ internationally, nationally and geographically. They differ within ethnic groups and between individuals. Can American eyes even distinguish a Hutu from a Tootsie? A Serb from a Croat? A Mexican from a Costa Rican? A Jewish Cuban from a Catholic one? The fact that these categories are mental constructs invented by those who have the power to enforce their own vision makes them no less real. Wars have been and continue to be fought in their name, lives interrupted and lives destroyed. We must not take them lightly. But must we take them at all?

To this question, I would say “Yes” because even those of us working for feminist and humanitarian change must first engage with the world as we find it. And we find it domestically and internationally divided into geographical and psychological boundaries and borders that unify while separating. To approach them sensitively in international border crossings involves learning the mattering map (Kaschak, 2011) of a partner from another culture and placing it metaphorically beside or over your own like two templates showing the process of dissection of a frog from a high school biology book.

If we are to work with individuals in cultural context, we cannot afford to look away from our own constructs and biases, nor can we afford to look away from what matters in other cultures about being an American. Each of us has met these ideas enough times in our work, as have the authors who contribute to this book. I myself, along with most of these border crossers, have tried to maintain even greater awareness and consciousness, the conscientization of Freire (1972) and the liberation psychologies, alongside the consciousness and mindfulness practices of feminist psychologies. The task, as I have understood it, becomes both respecting and defying borders and making alliances in defiance of patriarchal attempts to keep us apart.

CROSSING BORDERS AS CO-EDITORS

In the process of co-editing this book, we have been involved in our own border crossing experiences with one another—a feminist cross-fertilization of sorts. Long before the inception of this project three years ago, I (Kathryn) had already been influenced by Ellyn’s many and significant contributions to feminist psychology vis-à-vis, for example, her book, Engendered Lives (Kaschak, 1992), as well as her many conference presentations. I (Ellyn) was also aware of the important and committed work done by Kathryn and was eager to collaborate with her on a topic so important to us both. Several times over the past decade we crossed paths and learned from one another as we delivered papers as part of symposia dealing with this topic of international border crossings. It was upon the occasion of our last APA presentation that the idea for a special issue for the journal, Women & Therapy emerged, ultimately leading to the publication of this book. All of our work on this project has taken place via the internet; yet, we have had numerous meaningful conversations and negotiations as we refined the focus of this project, reviewed the chapters, and planned and wrote this one.

As one might note in the previous sections, we each represent a kaleidoscope of qualities, identities, and life experiences—some overlapping and some less so. As feminist activist psychologists and women, we are each from different generations, regions of the country, spiritual and cultural traditions, and have different herstories and personalities. Our voices are unique and arise from these varied contexts and lived experiences. Yet, we have found resonances as we have stumbled into and understood a bit about one another’s mattering maps. In our own border crossings over this three-year period, our feminist commitments to listen deeply, communicate respectfully, to value our differences and diverse perspectives, to recognize and remain aware of our power, to speak our truths, to be generous with one another, and to enact the principles that we embrace and cherish as feminist psychologists and activists, have provided the solid foundation for our collaboration on this project.

CONTRIBUTORS’ BORDER CROSSINGS AS INSIDERS AND OUTSIDERS: INHABITING THE IN-BETWEEN SPACES AT HOME AND ABROAD

Feminist psychologies from across the world, Global South and North, have been strong influences on both of us (Kathryn and Ellyn) in our respective work outside the U.S. and here at home. Thus, it is no accident that we wanted to include contributors in this book who anchor their thinking and social justice activities in global, transnational, and post-colonial feminisms as well as other critical and liberatory perspectives. We wanted chapters that provide a snapshot of the joys, challenges, and conundrums inherent in transcultural and transnational feminist border crossings and partnerships, and that offer readers a chance to know more about the important and often unseen work of feminists outside the West.

In her treatise on decolonizing feminisms, Chandra Mohanty (2003) emphasizes building ally relationships based on solidarity and the importance of intentionally appreciating differences within the community. According to Mohanty:

I define solidarity in terms of mutuality, accountability, and the recognition of common interests as the basis for relationships among diverse communities. Rather than assuming an enforced commonality of oppression, the practice of solidarity foregrounds communities of people who have chosen to work and fight together. Diversity and difference are central values here—to be acknowledged and respected, not erased in the building of alliances.

(p. 7)

The authors in the pages of this book illuminate these complexities.

Mohanty’s ideas are mirrored in the work of Ginger Norwood and Cheery Zahau, in their women’s leadership projects with Chin women’s groups living in exile from Burma along the Indian border. Early on in their chapter (Chapter 2), they note the importance of developing long-term, close relationships with the communities with whom they collaborate, ever recognizing that the terms of truly being an ally involve recognizing that the work is a process of liberation for everyone involved. Their highly experiential workshop methodology that centers and values the wisdom and knowledge of the local participants illustrates how differences can be honored and incorporated into the process of cultivating power-sharing leadership.

The methodology used by Ginger and Cheery is one shared by Kathryn Norsworthy and Nuch Buranajaroenkij in their peace-building and trauma recovery projects in the three southern provinces of Thailand with Malay Muslim and ethnic Thai communities experiencing serious ethno-political conflict. Nuch and Kathryn employ a liberatory feminist approach (Norsw...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Citation information
• Notes on contributors
• 1. Introduction: Border Crossings: Feminist Activists and Peace Workers Collaborating across Cultures
• 2. Fostering a Grassroots Women’s Movement through Feminist Leadership on the Burma-India Border
• 3. Crossing Borders, Building Bridges, and Swimming Upstream: Feminist Liberatory Work within South Thailand Communities in Conflict
• 4. Working across Boundaries: Exploring the Relations of Researching Gender and Development
• 5. Insider Outsider: Reflections on Working with One’s Own Communities
• 6. Decolonization and “Mental” Health: A Mestiza’s Journey in the Borderlands
• 7. Crossing Borders Without Leaving Home
• 8. Sexual Assault Recovery in the Aftermath of the Liberian Civil War: Forging a Sisterhood between Feminist Psychology and Feminist Theology
• 9. Final Reflections: Critical Consciousness in Cross-National Border Crossings
• Index