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Which ‘Mountain’ Must Feminism Climb?: Challenges for Feminist Alliances between Migrant and Autochthonous Women\u27s Groups in the Basque Country

Abstract

Within a post-colonial framework, this paper explores the possibilities and difficulties of feminist alliances among feminist groups in the Basque Country. In particular, it focuses on a close reading of one metaphor that emerged in the joint meetings between the groups: “the metaphor of the mountain”. Using Nayak\u27s (2014) methodology of the ‘political activism of close reading practice”, it examines the implications of the metaphor in the creation of political alliances. This is an active metaphor that exemplifies the dialectic between the universality of the patriarchal subjugation of women and the recognition of the specificity and diversity of women\u27s lived experiences. The metaphor locates feminist groups in different positions depending on the level of “feminist development” and calls for a decolonization of feminism that involves not only the processes of cultural alienation of women at the margins, but the uncovering of the superiority of mainstream Western feminism. The paper suggests that the construction of feminist alliances within a postcolonial context should take into account the inequalities, positions of power and privileges that women occupy while, at the same time, building politics of intimacies and encounters that encourage ethical dialogue

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