Interrogating coloniality, pursuing intersectionality and nurturing hope in knowledge-making on feminist politics in India and beyond

Abstract

This paper attempts to uncover, interrogate and disrupt coloniality in feminist politics and knowledge-making, and explores the relevance and use of intersectionality as critical theory, critical methodology and critical pedagogy in this project. Drawing on my research, spanning fifteen years and four case studies, I reflect on the construction and continued use of the ‘third world woman’ trope, ​the roots of professionalization of feminism and its impact on knowledge-making, ​the exclusions and erasures in such knowledge-making, ​​and the challenges in decentring northern hegemony in gender and sexuality studies and in decolonizing feminist classrooms. ​ My motivation behind these reflections is to disrupt the idea of sanitised linear accounts of feminist knowledge production. Hence, I also reflect on the doubts and dilemmas, insecurities and limitations that have accompanied my learning, unlearning and relearning how to cultivate knowledge on feminist politics. I conclude with a call for nurturing anti-colonial hope in knowledge-making on feminist politics. Students in feminist classrooms often lament about the cynicism and despondency they experience as a result of the relentless critique in which they are trained to engage. At a time when gender and sexuality studies courses and centres are encountering severe backlash, it is all the more urgent to ensure that our students’ learning empowers them to imagine hopeful, intersectional and anti-colonial feminist futures.