ABSTRACT

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book seeks to bridge the gap between theory and practice by surveying literature and suggesting proposals for research and for policy and programming alternatives. In a postmodern era which emphasizes deconstruction, contextualization, discourse analysis, identity politics, and difference, the notion of shared agendas or common grounds embodied in imagined communities may seem audacious or retrograde. The "imagined communities" both Mohanty and Brah identify are imagined in the sense that they suggest areas of potential collaboration across boundaries. Contemporary feminism, however, owes much to postmodernism. Postmodernism's focus on multiple standpoints and identities that are products of specific historical and social contexts has created space for multiple voices within the feminist movement. The image of "imagined communities" appears in all the works reviewed. Mohanty and Sandoval imagine communities of people joined together by opposition to all forms of dominance.