Though we can extend the transnational and postcolonial conversations to #MeToo, the movement’s situation in the fourth wave feminism makes it methodologically different. This session is rooted in the following important political and critical ideas: #MeToo has become a transnational feminist movement; #MeToo, like other feminist movements, works effectively through adaptation and provisions rather than replication; #MeToo assumes a different face in postcolonial, transnational, and Islamic feminism, hence requires different theoretical approaches; these theoretical approaches need be closely connected with feminist praxis. Through eclectic and intersectional approaches, the speakers in this session bring together their personal and academic experience of the reception, translation, adaptation, and praxis of #MeToo in diverse political and academic locations.
Anat Shwartz traces the evolution of #MeToo in South Korea in 2018 by tracing feminist activism to earlier anti-sexual violence activism of #IAmAFeminist in 2015, #MySexualAbuseIn00 in 2016, and the movement against “spy cam pornography” recently. By examining the role of Korean feminist activists and Korean feminist scholarship and epistemology, Schwartz brings technological platforms and feminist lived experiences into conversation. She highlights the need to synthesize feminist epistemology and feminist activism along with pointing that #MeToo has become a citational tool as it functions both as a curation method and as a performative utterance. Overall, she contends that #MeToo is not a spontaneous or stand-alone movement, but rather indicative of a new feminist method in South Korea.
Kasey Jones-Matrona explores the impact of literary activism as a counterpart to the online activism of indigenous voices in #MeToo and indigenous centric social media campaigns of #MMIW and #NotInvisibe. She further questions the role of celebrity feminist activists’, who have huge following on social media accounts, in helping alleviate the problems posed by centuries old history of settler colonialism and violence against indigenous women. In doing so, she uses Louise Erdrich’s The Round House(2008) and Joseph Boyden’s Edited collection Kwe: Standing with Our Sisters(2014) along with the works of contemporary indigenous feminists and activists. She explores on how #MeToo can be adopted as an effective movement for the indigenous women’s rights.
Iqra Shagufta argues that the religious, cultural, and political history of Pakistan necessitates the placement of #MeToo within the Islamic feminist history with locally accessible vocabulary. Feminist agendas, including #MeinBhi and #AuratMarch in Pakistan, have faced rigorous criticism because of institutionalized misogyny. That is why even the celebrities, let alone common women, have to face harassment and legal injustice when they share their stories. She will share few brief personal stories. Deploying Amna Wadud, Fatema Mernissi, Chandra Mohanty, and Uma Narayan, she would place those stories in the academic discussions of #MeToo and how it translates into feminist praxis in places like Pakistan that are religiously and politically hostile to Western feminism. She will, ultimately, purpose ways in which #MeToo can be adapted and adjusted into postcolonial, Islamic feminism and intersectional feminism.
Overall, I believe this session will spark significant newer conversations within existing postcolonial, transnational, indigenous, and Islamic feminisms, and help build feminist alliances in the non-Western peripheries. Each speaker will take 15 mins for their presentation; that will leave ample 30 mins for discussion and Q/A session at the end.