Governance Feminism: Notes from the Field

Notes from the Field

2019

Janet Halley, Prabha Kotiswaran, Rachel Rebouché, and Hila Shamir, Editors

An interdisciplinary, multifaceted look at feminist engagements with governance across the global North and global South

Governance Feminism: Notes from the Field amasses nineteen chapters from leading feminist scholars and activists to critically describe and assess contemporary feminist engagements with state and state-like power. Providing a clear, cross-cutting, critical lens to map developments in feminist governance around the world, the book makes sense of the costs and benefits of current feminist realities to reimagine feminist futures.

Governance Feminism: Notes from the Field brings together nineteen chapters from leading feminist scholars and activists to critically describe and assess contemporary feminist engagements with state and state-like power. Gathering examples from North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, it complements and expands on the companion volume Governance Feminism: An Introduction. Its chapters argue that governance feminism (GF) is institutionally diverse and globally distributed—emerging from traditional sites of state power as well as from various forms of governance and operating at the grassroots level, in the private sector, in civil society, and in international relations.  

The book begins by confronting the key role that crime and punishment play in GFeminist projects. Here, contributors explore the ideological and political conditions under which this branch of GF became so robust and rethink the carceral turn. Other chapters speak to another face of GFeminism: feminists finding, in mundane and seemingly unspectacular bureaucratic tools, leverage to bring about change in policy and governance practices. Several contributions highlight the political, strategic, and ethical challenges that feminists and LGBT activists must negotiate to play on the governmental field. The book concludes with a focus on feminist interventions in postcolonial legal and political orders, looking at new policy spaces opened up by conflict, postconflict, and occupation.

Providing a clear, cross-cutting, critical lens through which to map developments in feminist governance around the world, Governance Feminism: Notes from the Field makes sense of the costs and benefits of current feminist realities to reimagine feminist futures. 

Contributors: Libby Adler, Northeastern U; Aziza Ahmed, Northeastern U; Elizabeth Bernstein, Barnard College; Amy J. Cohen, Ohio State U; Karen Engle, U of Texas at Austin; Jacob Gersen, Harvard U; Leigh Goodmark, U of Maryland; Aeyal Gross, Tel Aviv U; Aya Gruber, U of Colorado, Boulder; Janet Halley, Harvard U; Rema Hammami, Birzeit U, Palestine; Vanja Hamzić, U of London; Isabel Cristina Jaramillo-Sierra; Prabha Kotiswaran, King’s College London; Maleiha Malik, King’s College London; Vasuki Nesiah, New York U; Dianne Otto, Melbourne Law School; Helen Reece; Darren Rosenblum, Pace U; Jeannie Suk Gersen, Harvard U; Mariana Valverde, U of Toronto.

Janet Halley is Royall Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. 

Prabha Kotiswaran is professor of law and social justice at King’s College London. 

Rachel Rebouché is professor of law at Temple University Beasley School of Law.

Hila Shamir is associate professor at Tel-Aviv University Faculty of Law.

Contents

Introduction

Janet Halley

Part I. Feminism Wields the Sword

1. Feminist Governance and International Law: From Liberal to Carceral Feminism

Karen Engle

2. The Politics of Sex, Rights, and Freedom in Contemporary Antitrafficking Campaigns

Elizabeth Bernstein

3. The Charybdis of Rape Myth Discourse

Helen Reece

4. Governance Feminism in New York’s Human Trafficking Intervention Courts

Amy J. Cohen and Aya Gruber

5. An Accidental Governance Feminist: An Interview with Kate Mogulescu

Amy J. Cohen and Aya Gruber

6. The Unintended Consequences of Domestic Violence Criminalization: Reassessing a Governance Feminist Success Story

Leigh Goodmark

Part II. The Long March through the Institutions

7. Governing Sex through Bureaucracy

Jacob Gersen and Jeannie Suk Gersen

8. Feminism, Law, and Epidemiology in the AIDS Response

Aziza Ahmed

9. Contesting Feminism’s Institutional Doubles: Troubling the Security Council’s Women Peace and Security Agenda

Dianne Otto

10. Sex Quotas and Burkini Bans

Darren Rosenblum

Part III: Ideological Trajectories for GFeminists

11. From Bad to Worse Via a Successful Constitutional Challenge: The Tragedy of Feminist Engagement with Prostitution Law Reform in Canada

Mariana Valverde

12. “You Play, You Pay”: Feminists and Child Support Enforcement in the United States

Libby Adler and Janet Halley

13. Governance Feminism in the French Republic: Veils, Parité, and Feminists

Maleiha Malik

14. Gay Governance: A Queer Critique

Aeyal Gross

Part IV. Postcolonial Feminists in Global/Local Struggle

15. Governance Feminism’s Others: Sex Workers and India’s Rape Law Reforms

Prabha Kotiswaran

16. A Cry for Madness: Governance Feminism and Neoliberal Consonance in Pakistan

Vanja Hamzić

17. Finding and Losing Feminism in Transition: The Costs of the Continuum Hypothesis for Women in Colombia

Isabel Cristina Jaramillo-Sierra

18. Follow the Numbers: Global Governmentality and the Violence against Women Agenda in Occupied Palestine

Rema Hammami

19. Indebted: The Cruel Optimism of Leaning-in to Empowerment

Vasuki Nesiah

Acknowledgments

Contributors

Index