Captive Gender: Ethnic Stereotypes and Cultural Boundaries

The centrality of gender to nationalism, and to imagining the nation, has been convincingly argued by feminist scholars and activists across the world. As Rada lvekovic says, it is probably the “first organizing principle in any society.” In this critical set of essays, she advances that argument by locating it in the context of the ethnic or communal division of countries; the gradual, and perhaps even deliberate, depoliticisation of a society that predisposes it towards violence; and finally, in the juxtaposition of nationalism and freedom itself. Intellectually and politically grounded in the experience of successive partitions, this theoretically sophisticated analysis presents a challenge to feminists and political philosophers alike, on the very notion of the modern nation and its evolution; and on the exclusions-of evolution; and on the exclusions-of women, of minorities and of the underclasses-that it engenders.