Transnational-April 9

Changing times poses an issue within theoretical writing, as we have seen throughout this course.  Because theory changes with time, theory writers are tempted and sometimes obliged to revisit their former publications.  Transnationalism theory is especially subject to this phenomenon, which is why Mohanty revisited her past work, "Under Western Eyes."  Mohanty has added a new layer to the discourse about transnational feminism.  She strives to defend her vocabulary and push away misleading terms such as "Western" and "non Western".  This change is significant for me because my Persian studies professor feels crushed when we use that terminology.  As students entering the world of academic writing, it i critical for us, and Mohanty, to use the most accurate wording.  Another change in Mohanty;s writing is her emphasis o the global economy, specifically capitalism, as a modern legacy of colonialism.  Capitalism, according to Mohanty, forces a polarization of the One-Third and the Two-Thirds World as well as between individuals within a single community.  She argues that the First and Third World dichotomy contributes to biases, especially in the case of feminist mobilization.  Privilege, as characteristic of the Two-Thirds World, creates blindness to the needs of the local.  This is similar to the argument of Berkeley Brown, who stated that social stratification inherently obstructs our view of the reality people on different rungs face.  The Eurocentric feminism that Mohanty critics attempts to theorize the universal and thus, issues of the One-Thirds World are not considered in the "universal" theory of the "Two-Thirds" World.