Transnational women's movements have literally changed the “terms and nature of debate” (Keck and Sikkink 1998: 3), especially at the transnational level. My thesis research attempts to address the connection between social movement literatures and feminist theory by analyzing the variation of frames among transnational organizations of women's movements in the modern era. Further study of this period is much needed to gain a deeper understanding of the changing dynamics of transnational social movements, in general, and also women's political action in particular.
I explain my use of qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) and discuss the operationalization of the variables in the analysis. I explain and exemplify the substantial heterogeneity in organizations' collective action frameworks and document the relative prevalence of these frameworks. Closely related to my understanding of feminism is my conceptualization of the social movement associated with it.
A brief overview of the development of contemporary transnational women's activism is instructive if we consider the context of this study. In this section I first give some brief comments on the foundations of the ..-frame perspective in social movements.
Moreover, while myriad women's issues have been articulated as integral to Beijing, the division of issues into "critical areas of concern" in the Beijing Platform for Action (BPA) may have (unintentionally) contributed to the demobilization of collective efforts. . Particularly in the areas of women's reproductive health and sexuality, fundamentalist forces have worked together to reject the UN agenda. The word of the UN Millennium Development Goals is just one of the manifestations of the diminishing opportunities after Beijing; while women's reproductive and sexual health were articulated as important issues in the BPA, these issues were absent from the MDGs.
Eager to take advantage of these new mobilization opportunities, feminists and women's activists have become increasingly aware and alert to the need to forge alliances with extra-feminist global justice movements such as those organized around. The stated goals of the Feminist Dialogues (FD) include developing a strategy to imbue the WSF with a feminist perspective and lay the groundwork for building alliances with other social movements. In light of these global developments, namely the unprecedented political, economic and discursive dominance of neoliberal economics, the increasing militarization of women's lives, the introduction of the WSF (originally a largely anti-globalisation arena) as a critical new mobilizing structure and the desire of feminists and women's activists to build bridges with wider global justice . movements, we can assume that TFNs are generally interested in setting up frameworks that: a) relate to the dominant grievances of the political and historical moment and b) are aimed at connecting with other social movements and are therefore widely applicable.
Like a feminist identity, a multi-issue focus reflects a TFN's attention to the connections between the various obstacles women face; such an ideological stance is highly consistent with the views expressed in hegemony-challenging frameworks. Global South activists sometimes claim that their counterparts in the North cannot understand the material realities they face and therefore cannot relate to their (potentially) more radical perspectives. However, little attention has been paid to the relationship between organizational structure and organizational framework.
Although the SMOs she investigates are not part of the same movement, but rather are on opposite sides, her findings are relevant to the study at hand. The resource mobilization approach to social movements alerts us to the importance of financial, political, and human resources in the emergence, development, and success of movements (Jenkins 1983; McCarthy and Zald 1977). Valocchi (1996) presents compelling evidence of the emergence of integrationist ideology and the rights framework within the US.
The rise in the use of multi-issue frameworks may represent a growing awareness of the interconnected nature of global problems, but also, as Bandy and Smith (2005) note, an attempt by activists to promote "broad-based transnational mobilization" (6). In their study of the impact of different types of frames on activist mobilization in the US, I then presented my research design for the project, including a description of data sources and analytical techniques.
Finally, I provide a more detailed look at the specific questions and methods that guide each of the three chapters of the analysis. Essential to understanding the key elements of a feminist approach is the recognition that feminist theory and methodology originate outside the academy, in women's real-life struggles, particularly women's activism. Third, it gives me a constant awareness of my subject position and the limits of my vantage point.
By also engaging in participatory methods, I diffuse some of the tension inherent in my subject position as a white, Western, educated person situated in academia. I used the online, searchable version of YIO in the summer of 2007 to identify an initial, broad list of organizations that I then narrowed down according to a number of factors. I visited the websites (if available) of each of the 293 organizations to further determine eligibility for inclusion in the study population.
Our team received an exemption due to the public nature of the premises and the limited risk to research subjects. 34 At the 2009 WSF, the leadership of the FD held events within the Forum, rather than a. At the other end of the spectrum, many sessions are small, informal and highly conducive to group discussion.
In some cases, each of the small groups discussed the same topic; in others, different topics were assigned to each small group.
Mapping the Landscape of Transnational Feminist Framing
Finally, in the third chapter of the analysis, I draw primarily on ethnographic evidence to explain the differences and tensions between activists and organizations that become visible through their discursive practices; I further use these data to show how particular framing strategies are used in attempts to manage and negotiate such differences. I consider texts as whole constructions; that is, during each stage of the coding process I was able to review entire statements38 rather than just the phrase or. I first approached the texts using a procedure commonly referred to as "open coding" (Strauss 1987; Strauss and Corbin 1990).
At a basic level, coding is the process by which the researcher begins to extract meaning by identifying and adding labels to parts or “chunks” of data (Hesse-Biber and Leavy 2005). Later, when I refer to "passages" of the text, I mean the provision of passages (within the text) that make up the group action framework. I first scrutinized the texts for the presence of collective action frameworks by considering whether the passages dealt with one of the core tasks of forming a diagnosis or prognosis (Snow and Benford 1988).39 I also noted instances where organizations made a statement about their collective identities. , or engaged in meaning work that attempted to construct group boundaries (Silver 1997).
This first pass through the data was followed by multiple coding sessions through which the coding scheme was iteratively refined. Each time I identified a new frame, I revisited the previously coded text of the TFNs to assess whether I had overlooked the presence of that frame. However, not all TFNs used each of these three types of frames in their statements.
Furthermore, individual TFNs could and did use multiple forms of diagnostic, prognostic, and identity frames simultaneously. Finally, in cases where TFN made a statement about her identity, the passage was coded as an identity frame. Examples of this included a group self-identifying as "feminists" and also as women of the Third World or global South.
I use the findings from the content analysis to construct the dependent variables (the.
Meso-Level Influences on the Framing Strategies of TFNs. I make use of the findings from the content analysis to construct the dependent variables (the
Using a detailed narrative account of women's activism in World Social Forum and Feminist Dialogue meetings, I document how transnational organizations have used discursive strategies as tools to address group differences. This category of frames refers to economic problems as serious (and often the most serious) obstacles to women's flourishing. Other frameworks in this category focus on raising awareness of women's issues among political leaders and the public.
Prognostic frameworks that specifically cited economic solutions to women's obstacles were evident in 41.9 percent of mission statements in the sample. I first explain what constitutes hegemony for transnational women's activists in the contemporary global context, and outline the nature of frameworks that challenge and exploit hegemony. First, note that each of the three TFNs that are "challengers only" (Global Women's Strike, Women in Black, and World March of Women) appear in the same configuration (#1), while.
Both feminist identity and a focus on multiple issues imply a holistic view of women's issues, an intersectional perspective that aligns with much of the counter-hegemonic discourse. Isis is also among the most ardent and vocal defenders of the feminist brand in the population of transnational SMOs working on women's issues. I will demonstrate that actors within the transnational women's movement are very aware of the differences and their potential to create fragmentation.
In my opinion, this is one of the biggest challenges facing the women's movement today." -- Nandita Shah, Associate Director of Akshara India. And while her voice still represents the beliefs of a legitimate segment of the women's movement, others articulate a different perspective. In the next section, I discuss in greater detail the need for and unique difficulties in fostering shared meanings within the global women's movement.
Women's groups, then, must adapt their framing practices appropriately to accommodate both internal differences and rapid changes in the movement's environment. We had a clean analysis and uncomplicated strategy... The women's movement has made a significant radical change. In a WSF session focusing on local impact and implementation of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the Global Women's Network for.
In the case of transnational women's movements, movement actors are accountable to the rich tradition of feminist theory and practice and to the many historical lessons they offer. Much of the new movement's thinking (about counterpower based on democratic diversity) and behavior (public cultural outrage and celebration) can be traced back to feminists (2002: 8).
