FEMINISM AND CULTURAL STUDIES IN ASIA

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Abstract
This paper marks significant moments in the trajectory of cultural studies in Asia in relation to feminism. It begins by contrasting the relationship of feminism and cultural studies in Western contexts such as Britain, where feminism disrupted a prior field, to feminism's foundational relationship to cultural studies in many Asian contexts, including India. The paper goes on to speculate on the nature of the unique link between culture, the nation and women in Asian historical contexts, which has made for a selective naming of feminism in particular as Western and inauthentic, with consequences for the already difficult relationship between women and modernity. Such shared problematics across countries with different histories and political trajectories extend to questions of translation and contemporary shifts from prior conceptions of feminist politics. The last part of the paper looks at the confluence of cultural studies and women's studies in India, contrasting the rich legacies of women's studies for cultural studies with more recent pedagogical challenges to feminism in the cultural studies classroom. At issue in the paper as whole, therefore, is the debt that cultural studies owes to feminism in non-Western contexts.

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