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SUNY Series: Praxis: Theory in Action
Taking Risks: Feminist Activism and Research in the Americas
Taking Risks offers a creative, interdisciplinary approach to narrating the stories of activist scholarship by women. The essays are based on the textual analysis of interviews, oral histories, ethnography, video storytelling, and theater. The contributors come from many disciplinary backgrounds, including theater, history, literature, sociology, feminist studies, and cultural studies. The topics range from the underground library movement in Cuba, femicide in Juarez, community radio in Venezuela, video archives in Colombia, exiled feminists in Canada, memory activism in Argentina, sex worker activists in Brazil, rural feminists in Nicaragua, to domestic violence organizations for Latina immigrants in Texas. Each essay addresses two themes: telling stories and taking risks. The authors understand women activists across the Americas as storytellers who, along with the authors themselves, work to fill the Latin American and Caribbean studies archives with histories of resistance. In addition to sharing the activists stories, the contributors weave in discussions of scholarly risk taking to speak to the challenges and importance of elevating the storytellers and their histories.
- GenresNonfiction
383 pages, Hardcover
First published June 30, 2014
19 people want to read
About the author
Julie D. Shayne
4 books3 followersI was born and raised in California. I received a BA and MA in Women's Studies from San Francisco State University and a second MA and Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California at Santa Barbara. I became active in Latin American politics during the Reagan administration as a result of the intensive U.S. intervention in Central America.
As a solidarity activist I traveled to El Salvador for the first time in 1985. Since then, I have been able to incorporate my political convictions into my intellectual pursuits. My areas of interest include revolution, gender, feminism, exile, and development in Latin America and the diaspora.
I started my academic career at Emory University in Women's Studies and Sociology but after six years in Atlanta, and a very difficult decision, my husband and I decided we had to return to the west coast and I resigned to move to the Seattle area. (For more on that decision see my essay "Mother's Day: https://www.uwb.edu/getattachment/ias...).
I am currently a Principal Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences at the University of Washington, Bothell, and Affiliate Principal Lecturer in Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies & Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle.
http://www.uwb.edu/ias/faculty/jshayne
When not working, I enjoy the natural beauty of the Puget Sound area with my family - my husband Dave, daughter Barrie, and son Aaron. And, of course, I love to read!
As a solidarity activist I traveled to El Salvador for the first time in 1985. Since then, I have been able to incorporate my political convictions into my intellectual pursuits. My areas of interest include revolution, gender, feminism, exile, and development in Latin America and the diaspora.
I started my academic career at Emory University in Women's Studies and Sociology but after six years in Atlanta, and a very difficult decision, my husband and I decided we had to return to the west coast and I resigned to move to the Seattle area. (For more on that decision see my essay "Mother's Day: https://www.uwb.edu/getattachment/ias...).
I am currently a Principal Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences at the University of Washington, Bothell, and Affiliate Principal Lecturer in Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies & Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle.
http://www.uwb.edu/ias/faculty/jshayne
When not working, I enjoy the natural beauty of the Puget Sound area with my family - my husband Dave, daughter Barrie, and son Aaron. And, of course, I love to read!
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 15, 2015
From http://weeksnotice.blogspot.com/2015/...
I read Julie Shayne's edited volume Taking Risks: Feminist Activism and Research in the Americas (2014). The title is intended to convey both the risks that activists take and the professional risks scholars make when they engage in this type of research. The book centers on story-telling as part of transnational feminist methodologies and is organized in three parts: Texts, stories, and activism; performed stories of social justice; and activist stories from the grassroots. The authors come from all over the hemisphere and the line between activist and academic is blurred.
As someone with little background on the topic, I was particularly interested in the diversity of views. All the authors are committed to social justice, but how they approach it varies considerably. Goals include giving voice to the voiceless, simply helping others, creating an archive by which these stories become permanent, and understanding yourself better and becoming more self-aware, even methodologically. The authors also discuss ways in which their own thinking is challenged and how they deal with that. As a result, the stories of activism and activists are compelling but the self-reflection is perhaps more so.
Interestingly, no author is a political scientist. That's unfortunate because there are scholars doing work in this area (e.g. Christina Ewig, who I went to graduate school with) who seek to bridge the activist/positivist divide that Shayne outlines. Nonetheless, the chapters offer a lot of food for methodological thought.
I read Julie Shayne's edited volume Taking Risks: Feminist Activism and Research in the Americas (2014). The title is intended to convey both the risks that activists take and the professional risks scholars make when they engage in this type of research. The book centers on story-telling as part of transnational feminist methodologies and is organized in three parts: Texts, stories, and activism; performed stories of social justice; and activist stories from the grassroots. The authors come from all over the hemisphere and the line between activist and academic is blurred.
As someone with little background on the topic, I was particularly interested in the diversity of views. All the authors are committed to social justice, but how they approach it varies considerably. Goals include giving voice to the voiceless, simply helping others, creating an archive by which these stories become permanent, and understanding yourself better and becoming more self-aware, even methodologically. The authors also discuss ways in which their own thinking is challenged and how they deal with that. As a result, the stories of activism and activists are compelling but the self-reflection is perhaps more so.
Interestingly, no author is a political scientist. That's unfortunate because there are scholars doing work in this area (e.g. Christina Ewig, who I went to graduate school with) who seek to bridge the activist/positivist divide that Shayne outlines. Nonetheless, the chapters offer a lot of food for methodological thought.
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September 19, 2014305.42097 T1368 2014
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews