Rescuing the female migrant!?: On the tricky relation between gendered violence, racism and agency [Die Migrantin retten!?: Zum vertrackten Verhältnis von Geschlechtergewalt, Rassismus und Handlungsmacht]

Osterreichische Zeitschrift fur Soziologie
Volume 41, 2016, Pages 13-28

Rescuing the female migrant!?: On the tricky relation between gendered violence, racism and agency [Die Migrantin retten!?: Zum vertrackten Verhältnis von Geschlechtergewalt, Rassismus und Handlungsmacht] (Article) (Open Access)

Castro Varela M.M. , Dhawan N.*

^a Alice Salomon Hochschule, Alice-Salomon-Platz 5, Berlin, 12627, Germany
^b Institut für Polikwissenschaft, Universität Innsbruck, Universitätsstraße 15, Innsbruck, 6020, Austria

Abstract

The contribution engages with the pivotal feminist issues of gendered violence, vulnerability, and agency and the concomitant dilemmas that emerge when addressing the problem of gendered and sexualized violence particularly in migrant and refugee communities. Drawing on a postcolonial-feminist perspective, the effort is to critically outline the mainstream construction of the other woman in discussions on migration and flight. As argued by Judith Butler, while new modes of collective agency can emerge by drawing on vulnerability as a site of political agency, it can also justify paternalistic protection reinforcing coercive processes of gender formation. It is indeed possible to simultaneously be vulnerable and have agential power. © 2016, The Author(s).

Author Keywords

Racism/sexism gendered violence Decolonization Migration/refuge

Index Keywords

[No Keywords available]

Link
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84994890209&doi=10.1007%2fs11614-016-0237-3&partnerID=40&md5=27231f44640c3bad2a289546b2f0f08c

DOI: 10.1007/s11614-016-0237-3

ISSN: 10110070

Original Language: German