Women's Studies 30 [At UC Santa Barbara]

Fall 2004, 1431 South Hall
Mondays and Wednesdays, 2-3:15 pm

A young Korean-American woman activist at the Seattle WTO protests observed that missing from the action were those who don't know the term globalization but who live it every day. This course aims to examine globalization as it impacts those who suffer first and worst under the destructive spread of global capitalism--women and people of color--both as the survivors and resisters of globalization.

It looks at the consequences of development and free trade in terms of assaults on the survival of people of color and especially women of color in the Third World and the AThird World within@ the United States . We will examine the losses by women in status, freedom, safety, education and their diminished access to the basic needs of food, housing and health care as a result of globalization. We will explore the relationship between domestic welfare "reform" in First World nations and structural adjustment as imposed on indebted nations of the Third World as they act simultaneously to compel out-migration from the Third World and channel women migrant workers into contingent labor of all forms. We will analyze the interconnections between domestic US and global economic restructuring in rendering Third World people, particularly women and children, a super-exploitable labor pool, vulnerable to being trafficked and ultimately coerced into low-wage work in manufacturing, service work and sex work in First World "host" countries and free trade zones.

In addition, we will examine how globalization threatens hard-won gains not only in labor rights but in environmental justice and human rights struggles. Finally, we will examine and challenge the dominant ideology that there are no alternatives to global capitalism and explore the notion of living over, rather than under, this “new world order.” That is, we will look at the many movements and models emerging in resistance to globalization, particularly those led and developed by women and people of color in traditional labor unions, alternative worker associations, community and human rights organizations as they shape a radical “new world order” of their own.

Texts:

Disposable Domestics: Immigrant Women Workers in the Global Economy , Grace Chang

Sweatshop Warriors: Immigrant Women Workers Take on the Global Factory , Miriam Ching Yoon Louie

We will read selections from other texts, including those below, assembled in a reader available through Grafikart, 6550 Pardall Road , Isla Vista , phone: 968-3575

Staying Alive, Women Ecology and Development , Vandana Shiva
Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply, Vandana Shiva
Global Sex Workers, by Kamala Kempadoo and Jo Doezema, eds.
Bananas, Beaches and Base: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics, Cynthia Enloe
Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women's Lives , Cynthia Enloe
WEdGE: Women's Education in the Global Economy (workbook for Activists, Organizers, Rebels and Hell Raisers), Miriam Ching Louie and Linda Burnham

*** Some articles may be put on file at the copy service, Davidson Library, Rm 2504, x2077 or ERes, or will be posted on the course list serv. You are required to subscribe ASAP to the course list serv. You can do so by going to the web page:

https://mail.lsit.ucsb.edu/mailman/listinfo.cgi/resistance.womst

Films:

Yellow Apparel: When the Coolie Becomes Cool , a getupstandup production
Uprooted: Refugees of the Global Economy , National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights
New World Border , Peek Media
Eating Welfare, Youth Leadership Project of CAAAV
The Golf War: A story of land, golf and revolution in the Philippines , Bullfrog Films
Sisters and Daughters Betrayed: The Trafficking of Women and Girls and the Fight to End It,
Chela Blitt and the Global Fund for Women
Say I do: Unveiling the Stories of Mail-Order Brides , Red Storm Productions
Love, Women and Flowers, Marta Rodriguez and Jorge Silva
Fire , Deepa Mehta
Once Were Warriors , Lee Tamohori

Class Schedule

Week 1, September 27 and 29 INTRODUCTIONS AND DEFINITIONS

Monday, 9/27 Introductions

Discuss class syllabus, goals, guidelines and requirements

Wednesday, 9/29 Globalization: Fun and Games for all Ages?

Quiz: Where in the World is Globalization?
See and discuss video: Yellow Apparel: When the Coolie Becomes Cool
Assignment: Begin reading Disposable Domestics: Immigrant Women Workers in the Global Economy;
Begin preliminary research on possible topics for a final project that you would be interested in doing. Remember: availability of sources will always influence, if not determine, your research topic.

Week 2, October 4 and 6 HOW and WHY TO STUDY WOMEN, DEVELOPMENT, GLOBALIZATION and RESISTANCE

Monday, 10/4 Ethical and ‘other' Questions in Approaching Research on Third World Women;

Principles of Popular Education and Participatory Research

Maria Mies, “Towards a Methodology of Feminist Research”
Delia Aguilar, “Lost in Translation: Western Feminism and Asian Women”
Sayantani Das Gupta and Shamita Das Dasgupta, “Women in Exile: Gender Relations in the Asian Indian Community in the U.S. ”
Popular Education guidelines developed by Project South: Institute for the Elimination of Poverty and Genocide

Wednesday, 10/6 Resistance: Women under and over Development

Vandana Shiva, “Development, Ecology and Women,” pp. 1-13 and “Women in Nature,” pp. 39-54
Vandana Shiva, “Introduction: Converting Abundance in to Scarcity,” pp. 1-17 and “The World Bank, WTO and Corporate Control over Water,” pp. 87-105
Darcie Vindergraft, “What is Development? Who is Community? Voices from a Town Meeting in Indigenous Costa Rica,” Sociology Case Study, University of California , pp. 1-10

Assignment: Continue reading Disposable Domestics for next week and listed selections in reader

Sections: Begin brainstorming ideas for final projects; Form Project Groups; Role play of case study

Week 3, October 11 and 13 GLOBAL MIGRATION AND IMMIGRANTS RIGHTS

Monday, 10/11 Forced Migration and Immigrant Workers' Rights in the Post 9/11 Context

See and discuss video: New World Border
Grace Chang, Disposable Domestics

Wednesday, 10/13 Who's the Illegal Alien, Pilgrim?

See and discuss video: Uprooted: Refugees of the Global Economy
Text of President Bush's speech on Immigration Policy proposal, January 4, 2004
From the Borderline to the Colorline: A Report on Anti-Immigrant Racism in the United States

Assignment: Gather information for your personal budget, details TBA in class, for week of 10/18

Sections: Brainstorm paper topics for Paper 1, due 10/20; Discuss Disposable Domestics

Write a 1-2 paragraph proposal for your final project, including your goals for the project, questions or issues you are addressing, sources to be used, and the format you anticipate using. Due week 5.

Week 4, October 18 and 20 CONNECTING US AND GLOBAL ECONOMIC RESTRUCTURING

Monday, 10/18 “Welfare Deform”: Global Economic Restructuring Here at Home

Popular Education Workshop: Living on a Welfare Budget

Wednesday, 10/20 Fighting Back: US-based Welfare Rights Organizing

See and discuss the film, Eating Welfare , by the Youth Leadership Project of CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities, Bronx , NY

Turn in Paper 1 today

Assignment: prep for SAPs workshop (TBA in class) with WEdGE workbook handout and reader selections; You are required to do outside research to supplement the information provided in the handouts.

Sections: Debrief and critique Popular Education Workshop, “Living on a Welfare Budget” and prepare for next one in groups

Week 5, October 25 and 27 SAPs AND THE GLOBALIZATION OF WOMEN'S POVERTY

Monday, 10/25 : SAPs and the Cost of (Women's) Living

Popular Education workshop: Mr. World Bank and the SAPs Dating Game; see The Golf War (TBA)
Grace Chang, “Global Exchange,” Ch. 4 of Disposable Domestics (review this chapter)
Marilyn Waring, “A Woman's Reckoning” in If Women Counted: A New Feminist Economics
Manisha Desai, “Transnational Solidarity: Women's Agency, Structural Adjustment, and Globalization,”
pp. 15-33 , in Women's Activism and Globalization: Linking Local Struggles and Transnational Politics

Students' independent research

Wednesday, 10/27 : Sex Trafficking of Women and Children—Victims or Agents?

See and discuss Sisters & Daughters Betrayed: The Trafficking of Women and Girls and the Fight to End It
“On the Beach: Sexism and Tourism,” and “Base Women” in Enloe, Bananas, Beaches and Bases
“Introduction: Globalizing Sex Workers' Rights,” K. Kempadoo in Kamala Kempadoo and Jo Doezema, eds., Global Sex Workers
“Forced to Choose: Beyond the Voluntary v. Forced Prostitution Dichotomy,” Jo Doezema in Kempadoo and Doezema, eds.
“Alison Murray, “Debt-Bondage and Trafficking: Don't Believe the Hype” in Kempadoo and Doezema, eds.

Sections: We may possibly hold popular education workshop in sections; Debrief and critique workshop;
Discuss readings

Assignment: Required-- See film Fire , by Deepa Mehta, on your own at Learning Lab, Kerr Hall, Room 2160, 2 nd Floor, M-F, 8 am –10:30 pm, F, 8-5, Sat, 9-5, Sun, 12-10:30 by November 13

Turn in Final Project Proposals in sections this week

Week 6, November 1 and 3 MILITARIZED SEX AS WEAPON OF WAR or SEXUALITY AS TOOL OF RESISTANCE?

Monday, 11/1 : Militarized Sexual Violence

Cythia Enloe, “When Soldiers Rape” and “Conclusion: Decisions, Decisions, Decisions” in Maneuvers
Gita Sen and Caren Grown, “Militarization and Violence”
Yoko Fukumura and Martha Matsuoka, “Redefining Security: Okinawa Women's Resistance to U.S. Militarism” 

Wednesday, 11/3 : Sexuality as Resistance

See and discuss excerpt from video: Say I Do, Red Storm Productions
Veena Oldenburg , “Lifestyle as Resistance: The Case of the Courtesans of Lucknow , India ”
Hung Cam Thai, “Clashing Dreams: Highly Educated Overseas Brides and Low-Wage U.S. Husbands”
Amy Lind and Jessica Share, “Queering Development: Institutionalized Heterosexuality in Development Theory, Practice and Politics in Latin America

Assignment: Read Sweatshop Warriors; Fine tune your ideas for final project/paper

Sections: Develop topics for Paper 2, due week 8; Discuss Readings; Schedule group project work

Week 7, November 8 and 10 ARE THE EMPIRE'S CLOTHES CLEAN?

Monday, 11/08 : Globalize This: Women's Resistance to the Global Sweatshop

Miriam Ching Louie, Sweatshop Warriors: Immigrant Women Workers Take on The Global Factory

Wednesday, 11/10 The Maquiladora Murders

Marjorie Agosin, “Death in the Desert: The Women of Ciudad Juarez ”
Alicia Gaspar de Alba, “The Maquiladora Murders”
Emma Perez, “So Far From God”

Sections: Discuss readings; Schedule group project work; Sign up for presentations in weeks 9 & 10

Assignment: Work on paper 2, due Wednesday, November 17

Recommended: See Once Were Warriors , by Lee Tamahori on your own in Learning Lab, Kerr Hall, Rm 2160, 2 nd Floor, M-F, 8 am –10:30 pm, F, 8-5, Sat, 9-5, Sun, 12-10:30 by Monday, November 15

Week 8, November 15 and 17 THIRD WORLD, NON-WESTERN FEMINISMS

Monday, 11/15 Brown Women Saving Themselves

Chandra Talpade Mohanty, “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses” in Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Feminism Without Borders , pp. 17-42
Amrita Basru, “Introduction” in Amrita Basu (ed.) The Challenge of Local Feminisms: Women's Movement in Global Perspectives Boulder, CO: Westview Press, pp. 1–25
Eve Ensler, “Under the Burqa,” Vagina Monologues
NoyThrupkaew, “What Do Afghan Women Want?”
Sonia Shah, “Unveiling the Taleban Dress Codes Are Not the Issue, New Study Finds”

Wednesday, 11/15 First Final Presentations by Students (10-15 minutes each)

5 presentations (Willingness to present first will be rewarded.)

Turn in paper 2 today

Assignment: Work on final projects and papers

Sections: Discuss Readings ; Final Project groups arrange meeting times

Week 9, November 22 and 24 Final Presentations by Students (10-15 minutes each)

5 presentations Monday, 5 presentations Wednesday= 10

4 presentations in each of 3 sections=12

Week 10, November 29 and December 1 Final Presentations by students (10-15 minutes each)

5 presentations Monday, 5 presentations Wednesday= 10

4 presentations in each of 3 sections=12

Exam Week: Final papers/projects due We may need to use all or part of the scheduled exam period for final presentations. (This may not be necessary, but you should be prepared for the possibility that your presence will be required, either as presenter or as audience member, on exam day. Credit will be deducted for absences during final presentations.)

http://www.womst.ucsb.edu/classes/wmst30/syllabus.html

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