Winter 2015 CSWS Research Matters:
“Networking for Women’s Rights: Transnational Feminist Organizing in Southern Africa,” by Yvonne A. Braun, Director of African Studies; Associate Professor, University of Oregon, Departments of Women’s and Gender Studies and International Studies
This CSWS-supported study examines the communication network of more than 100 women’s rights and advocacy organizations in southern Africa. The Winter 2015 issue of the CSWS publication Research Matters highlights the work being done by professors Yvonne Braun and her coauthor, Michael C. Dreiling, UO Department of Sociology.
Dr. Braun writes that she and Dr. Dreiling:
“were interested in trying to understand how local and regional activists and their allies were able to successfully mobilize and shift institutions, language, and practices over time in ways that are locally meaningful. We became interested in these dynamics as our previous research found that regional networks in the periphery proved critical for successfully advancing women’s status in Lesotho, albeit moderately. We specifically wanted to understand how these transnational linkages have a regional and local basis in women’s rights organizations bolstered not only by global North organizations, but by regional partnerships and hubs within the global South. In other words, we wanted to know what we would learn about women’s rights advocacy efforts if we decentered global North actors and highlighted regional women’s rights organizations networking across borders in the global South.”
For the complete article: Winter 2015 CSWS Research Matters
