This book explores the complex assemblage of biopolitics, citizenship, ethics and human rights concerns in South Asia focusing specifically on women poets, writers and artists and their explorations on marginalisation, violence and protest. The book traces the origins, varied historiographies and socio-political consequences of women’s protests and feminist discourses. Bringing together narratives of the Landais from Afghanistan, voices from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, Miya women poets writing from Assam, and stories of Dalit and queer women across the region, it analyses the diverse modes of women’s protests and their ethical and humanitarian cartographies. The volume highlights the reconfiguration of female voices of protest in contemporary literature and popular culture in South Asia and the formation of closely-knit female communities of solidarity, cooperation and collective political action. The book will be of interest to students and researchers of gender studies, literature, cultural studies, sociology, minority and indigenous studies, and South Asian studies.

Groundbreaking essays by female activists and scholars documenting women’s resistance before, during, and after the Arab Spring Images of women protesting in the Arab Spring, from Tahrir Square to the streets of Tunisia and Syria, have become emblematic of the political upheaval sweeping the Middle East and North Africa. In Women Rising, Rita Stephan and Mounira M. Charrad bring together a provocative group of scholars, activists, artists, and more, highlighting the first-hand experiences of these remarkable women. In this relevant and timely volume, Stephan and Charrad paint a picture of women’s political resistance in sixteen countries before, during, and since the Arab Spring protests first began in 2011. Contributors provide insight into a diverse range of perspectives across the entire movement, focusing on often-marginalized voices, including rural women, housewives, students, and artists. Women Rising offers an on-the-ground understanding of an important twenty-first century movement, telling the story of Arab women’s activism.

In Shapeshifters Aimee Meredith Cox explores how young Black women in a Detroit homeless shelter contest stereotypes, critique their status as partial citizens, and negotiate poverty, racism, and gender violence to create and imagine lives for themselves. Based on eight years of fieldwork at the Fresh Start shelter, Cox shows how the shelter's residents—who range in age from fifteen to twenty-two—employ strategic methods she characterizes as choreography to disrupt the social hierarchies and prescriptive narratives that work to marginalize them. Among these are dance and poetry, which residents learn in shelter workshops. These outlets for performance and self-expression, Cox shows, are key to the residents exercising their agency, while their creation of alternative family structures demands a rethinking of notions of care, protection, and love. Cox also uses these young women's experiences to tell larger stories: of Detroit's history, the Great Migration, deindustrialization, the politics of respectability, and the construction of Black girls and women as social problems. With Shapeshifters Cox gives a voice to young Black women who find creative and non-normative solutions to the problems that come with being young, Black, and female in America.

For over half a century, the countless organizations and initiatives that comprise the Women’s Liberation movement have helped to reshape many aspects of Western societies, from public institutions and cultural production to body politics and subsequent activist movements. This collection represents the first systematic investigation of WLM’s cumulative impacts and achievements within the West. Here, specialists on movements in Europe systematically investigate outcomes in different countries in the light of a reflective social movement theory, comparing them both implicitly and explicitly to developments in other parts of the world.

Subaltern Women's Narratives brings together intersectional feminist scholarship from the Humanities and Social Sciences and explores subaltern women’s narratives of resistance and subversion. Interdisciplinary in nature, the collection focuses on fictional texts, archival records, and ethnographic research to explore the lived experiences of subaltern women in different marginalised communities across a wide geographical landscape, as they negotiate their way through modes of labour and activism. Thematically grouped, the focus of this book is two-fold: to look at the lived experiences of subaltern women as they negotiate their lives in a world of political flux and conflicts; and to examine subaltern women’s dissenting practices as recorded in texts and archives. This collection will push the boundaries of scholarship on decolonial and postcolonial feminism and subaltern studies, reading women’s subversive practices especially in the themes of epistemology and embodiment. This book is aimed primarily at scholars, postgraduates, and undergraduates working in the fields of colonial and postcolonial studies. It will appeal to both historians and scholars of nineteenth century and contemporary literature. Specifically scholars working on subaltern theory, feminist theory, indigenous cultures, anticolonial resistance, and the Global South will find this book particularly relevant.

Livy’s Women explores the profound questions arising from the presence of women of influence and power in the socio-political canvas of one of the most important histories of Rome and the Roman people, Ab Urbe Condita (From the Foundation of the City). This theoretically informed study of Livy’s monumental narrative charts the fascinating links between episodes containing references to women in prominent roles and the historian’s treatment of Rome’s evolutionary foundation story. Explicitly gendered in relation to the socio-cultural contexts informing the narrative, the author’s background, the literary landscape of Livy's Rome, and the subsequent historiographical commentary, this volume offers a comprehensive, coherent and contextualised overview of all episodes in Ab Urbe Condita relating to women as agents of historical change. As well as proving invaluable insights into socio-cultural history for Classicists, Livy’s Women will also be of interest to instructors, researchers, and students of female representation in history in general.

Latin American women were among those who led the suffrage movements of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and their opposition to military dictatorships has galvanized more recent political movements throughout the region. But because of the continuous attempts to silence them, activists have struggled to make their voices heard. At the heart of Voices of Resistance are the testimonies of thirteen women who fought for human rights and social justice in their communities. Some played significant roles in the Cuban Revolution of 1959, while others organized grassroots resistance to the seventeen-year Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. Though the women share many objectives, they are a diverse group, ranging in age from thirty to eighty and coming from varied ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. The Cuban and Chilean women Judy Maloof interviewed use the narrative form to reinvent themselves. Maloof includes narratives from a poet, a tobacco worker, a political prisoner, an artist, and a social worker to demonstrate the different faces of their struggle. In the process, these women were able to begin to put together their fragmented lives. Speaking out is both a means for personal liberation and a political act of protest against authoritarian regimes. The bond that these women have is not simply that they have suffered; they share a commitment to resisting violence and confronting inequities at great personal risk.

In 1930s Bolivia, self-described Anarchist Cholas form a libertarian trade union. In the Northern Highlands of Vietnam, the songs of one girl’s youth lead her to a life of activism. In the Philippines, female elders from Kalinga blaze a trail when pushed into an impromptu protest. Equally striking accounts from, Chile, Ecuador, India, Nepal, and Peru weave a tapestry of trauma and triumph, shedding light on not-too-distant histories otherwise overlooked. Indigenous Peoples all over the world have always had to stand their ground in the face of colonialism. While the details may differ, what these stories have in common is their commitment to resistance in a world that puts profit before respect, and western notions of progress before their own. Movements & Moments is an introductory glimpse into how Indigenous Peoples tell these stories in their own words. From Southeast Asia to South America, vibrant communities must grapple with colonial realities to assert ownership over their lands and traditions. This project was undertaken in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut Indonesien in Jakarta. These stories were selected from an open call across forty-two countries to spotlight feminist movements and advocacies in the Global South.