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Feminism and Globalization

 

            In "Douloti the Bountiful"" by Mahasweta Devi, the tribal people as well as women are marginalized simultaneously as India is experiencing its independence. To the bonded laborers of India this independence has empowered the upper castes to impose their interests onto the tribals. This parallels the promises of globalization and neoliberalism, which proposes to free, liberate, bring equality and riches to nations that adopt neoliberal practices. As defined by David Harvey in.
             "A Brief History of Neoliberalism", neoliberalism is a "theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can be best advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms"(2). The normalization of this ideology has allowed it to be a hegemonic force "within global capital" which through studies of countries that have adopted these practices, has mainly ensured the concentration of wealth and power to the elite classes (9). .
             Amy Chua's "World on Fire" demonstrates the effects of globalization on developing countries that have adhered to neoliberal practices and the disproportionate distribution of wealth that has led to class conflict and intra-national ethnic violence. Calling this the "market-dominant minority"", Chua compliments Harvey's analysis of globalization raising cultural and class consequences through examples of rich ethnic minorities of countries like The Philippines, China, etc. that wield significant economic power over the ethnic majority. Saskia Sassen in her piece "Toward a Feminist Analytics of the Global Economy"" gives a feminist critique to the "narrative of eviction "that exists when conceptualizing globalization (82). The feminization of the proletariat in the informal economy results in the devalorization of women's labor in the "strategic nexus of the global economy (86). The focus of Devi's form of literature brings to attention the complexities within the borders of a nation and lives of the subaltern.


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