Feminist Transnational Activism Around Gender-Based Violence and Labor in North America: Limits and Opportunities
摘要
This chapter focuses on the challenges and possibilities for feminist transnational activism in North America since the mid-1990s. There appear to be two trajectories for such activism. The first trajectory is related to socioeconomic justice issues and has been dominated by bilateral transborder organizing (following the hub-and-spoke model), focusing in particular on the poor conditions in the maquiladora sector. In contrast, feminist transnational activism around gender-based violence (GBV) and femicides followed a second trajectory, as the NAFTA agreement did not provide openings for raising these issues, and the three governments initially addressed GBV/femicide issues as domestic concerns and did not place them on a regional policy agenda. They used the Inter-American Human Rights regime and the United Nations to pursue their transnational activism. Recent events suggest, however, that these GBV/femicide issues are now being “de-domesticated” and can be addressed in a regional context.