Barnard Center for Research on Women

Sonia Pierre (1963-2011), mobilized communities in the Dominican Republic to advocate for citizenship and human rights for Dominicans of Haitian descent. As the director of Movimiento de Mujeres Dominico-Haitiana (MUDHA), she used legal challenges in domestic and international courts to defend the citizenship rights of first and second generation children born on Dominican soil. This panel highlights the activism of young women who are moving forward with Sonia Pierre's work on behalf of Dominicans of Haitian descent, and addresses the question of how international pressure impacts efforts by marginalized groups to demand recognition. Panelists include Manuela (Solange) Pierre, Sonia Pierre’s oldest daughter, and the founder and coordinator of the Dominican Network of Young African Descendants (Red Dominicana de Jóvenes Afrodescendientes); Ninaj Raoul, the Executive Director of Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees; Monisha Bajaj, Associate Professor of International and Comparative Education at Teachers College; Minerva Leticia Solange, daughter of Sonia Pierre; and Miriam Neptune (moderator), video producer and director of Birthright Crisis, an award-winning documentary depicting the cycle of deportation and violence faced by Dominicans of Haitian descent.

Since visual images invoke the spectator's experience of unmediated access to the inner world of the subject, the evocative power of photographic images may readily reproduce forms of voyeurism. This under-theorizing becomes particularly problematic in projects that document the lives of migratory and marginalized women. Drawing on several decades of prior field research and documentary film projects, Professor Haaken presents a study carried out with women refugee and asylum-seekers in the UK. In discussing photographic images from the study, Haaken provides a framework for working through a series of ethical, political, and methodological dilemmas. She draws on psychoanalytic feminist theory, critical psychology, and participatory action research methods to argue for the importance of an approach to the visual that includes the dynamics of spectatorship as well as the dynamics of the research setting itself as an affectively rich and conflicted site of knowledge production.

Some writers have celebrated a new biological citizenship arising from individuals' unprecedented ability to manage their health at the molecular level. In this year’s Helen Pond McIntyre '48 lecture, Dorothy Roberts examines the role of race and gender in the construction of this new biocitizen in light of the current expansion of race-based, reproductive, and genetic biotechnologies along with neoliberal reliance on private resources for people's welfare. Roberts argues that science, big business, and politics are converging to support a molecularized understanding of race, health, and citizenship that ultimately helps to preserve inequities. An internationally recognized scholar, public intellectual, and social justice advocate, Dorothy Roberts has written and lectured extensively on the interplay of gender, race, and class in legal issues and has been a leader in transforming public thinking and policy on reproductive health, child welfare, and bioethics. She is the Penn Integrates Knowledge/George A. Weiss University Professor, the Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights, and Professor of Sociology at University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Ziba Mir-Hosseini is a legal anthropologist specializing in Islamic law, gender, and development. She is currently Professorial Research Associate at the Centre for Middle Eastern and Islamic Law, University of London. In this lecture, Dr. Mir-Hosseini explores the Islamic feminist movement's potential for changing the terms of debates over Islam and gender, arguing that the real battle is between patriarchy and despotism on the one hand, and gender equality and democracy on the other.

How does a shift from focusing on the 'autonomous and independent subject' to a framework of shared vulnerability transform intellectual, legal, and activist terrains? This interdisciplinary panel explores how our ideas of personhood, the state, politics, organizing, religion, consciousness, arts, and ethics change when vulnerability becomes the lens through which we examine them, focusing particularly on relationships of interdependence and structural inequality. Panelists include Martha Albertson Fineman, Ewa Plonowska Ziarek, Colin Dayan, and Ilaria Vanni. This discussion, moderated by Elizabeth Castelli, took place at The Scholar and Feminist Conference 2012, Vulnerability: The Human and the Humanities.

Advice about diet and health is extraordinarily controversial for reasons of science and politics. Human nutritional science is difficult to conduct and interpret. Advice about what to eat affects the ability of food companies to sell products. The result is cacophony in the marketplace and unnecessary confusion about dietary matters. Will better science solve this problem? Does the food industry have a role to play in promoting healthful food choices? Or are food companies analogous to cigarette companies in the way they deal with nutrition advocacy? Food expert Marion Nestle addresses such questions through relevant examples in this presentation. Nestle is Paulette Goddard Professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University, which she chaired from 1988-2003. She is also Professor of Sociology at NYU and Visiting Professor of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell. She is the author of three prize-winning books: Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health; Safe Food: The Politics of Food Safety; and What to Eat. She also has written two books about pet food, Pet Food Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine and Feed Your Pet Right (with Malden Nesheim). Her most recent book, released in March 2012, is Why Calories Count: From Science to Politics (also with Dr. Nesheim).

How much do you know about the food you eat? Food production and the politics surrounding it have an enormous impact on our environment and economy. In recent years, scientists and activists have raised concerns about the sustainability and security of our food systems here in the US and around the world, but food has always been a driving force in international and domestic policy. Barnard faculty members Kim F. Hall, Deborah Valenze, Paige West, and Hilary Callahan engage in an interdisciplinary conversation about the past and present social, geopolitical, rhetorical, and environmental factors that influence how food - including items as seemingly ordinary as sugar, coffee, milk, and corn - shapes culture and politics in this discussion moderated by Elizabeth Castelli.

From writing new constitutions to serving in local and national governance to sustaining NGOs and grassroots organizations to making policy changes, women and feminist groups in Africa are doing the difficult work of pushing local, state and international bodies to implement and guarantee gender equality and justice at every level. A group of scholars and activists draw on their experience in multiple regions of Africa, discussing how women are participating in the rebuilding of their societies - whether in post-conflict contexts or in times of deep political transformation during revolutions, post- revolutionary periods and transitions to democracy. Panelists include Lila Abu-Lughod (Columbia University), Rabab El Mahdi (American University in Cairo), Jane Bennett (African Gender Institute), and Penelope Andrews (CUNY School of Law). This discussion, moderated by Rosalind Morris (Columbia University), took place on the second day of Activism and the Academy: Celebrating 40 Years of Feminist Scholarship and Action, a two-day conference held September 23-24, 2011 in honor of the 40th anniversary of the Barnard Center for Research on Women.

What does it mean to be an activist researcher? What are some of the challenges of conducting research about social movements and within activist communities? Drawing on ethnographic and teaching experiences, panelists discuss their research on different communities and social movements, and how their roles as activist researchers affect this work. Panelists include Roberta Villalon (St. John's University), Jennifer Rogers (Long Island University), Nikki McGary (University of Connecticut), Barbara Gurr (University of Connecticut), and Kathleen Coll (Stanford University). This discussion, moderated by Nancy Naples (University of Connecticut), took place on the second took place on the second day of Activism and the Academy: Celebrating 40 Years of Feminist Scholarship and Action, a two-day conference held September 23-24, 2011 in honor of the 40th anniversary of the Barnard Center for Research on Women.

What types of projects are possible when scholars and activists work together? Scholars in the Gender Studies Program at the National Autonomous University of Mexico have formed partnerships with activist groups to address issues like state oppression and violence, struggles for land rights and indigenous rights, and gender equity both within the University and in the community at large. Scholar and activist participants in these projects discuss how they've combined traditional academic tools with new ways of intervention to create change. Panelists include Marisa Belausteguigoitia Rius, Rian Lozano de la Pola, Lorena Wolffer and Helena Lopez. This discussion, moderated by Margaret Cerullo, took place on the second day of Activism and the Academy: Celebrating 40 Years of Feminist Scholarship and Action, a two-day conference held September 23-24, 2011 in honor of the 40th anniversary of the Barnard Center for Research on Women.

Colleges and universities across the country are increasingly interested in adding opportunities for civic engagement to their curricula, seeking to expose their students to new ways of practicing and researching social justice. Educators from several institutions will look at the ways in which these projects can build feminist awareness and community on college campuses. Panelists include Dara J. Silberstein (SUNY Binghamton), Jerilyn Fisher (Hostos Community College), Leslie Simon (City College of San Francisco) and Stephanie Gilmore (Dickinson College). This discussion, moderated by Susannah Bartlow (Dickinson College), took place on the second day of Activism and the Academy: Celebrating 40 Years of Feminist Scholarship and Action, a two-day conference held September 23-24, 2011 in honor of the 40th anniversary of the Barnard Center for Research on Women.

BCRW's commitment to bringing feminist scholars and activists together in conversation and collaboration has been at the center of our work for the past 40 years. Representatives from three organizations with whom we have recently partnered - the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Queers for Economic Justice, and the New York Women's Foundation - discuss the unique models of feminist action and knowledge that have been produced through BCRW's scholar-activist partnerships. Panelists include Ai-jen Poo (National Domestic Workers Alliance), Sydnie L. Mosley '07 (dancer, choreographer and teacher), Amber Hollibaugh (Queers for Economic Justice), and Ana Oliveira (New York Women's Foundation). This plenary, moderated by Janet Jakobsen (BCRW), took place on the first day of Activism and the Academy: Celebrating 40 Years of Feminist Scholarship and Action, a two-day conference held September 23-24, 2011 in honor of the 40th anniversary of the Barnard Center for Research on Women.