ABSTRACT
Social movements contest and negotiate with the driving forces of economic globalization. By engaging with globalization, however, they contribute to the emergence of political and cultural globalization. Some social movements have expanded from the 1970s in the context of international exchange and cooperation, and even the so called “anti-globalization movements” have created global networks and global spaces of communication. In this emerging global public space, transnational movement networks have developed, which interact with international social movement organizations (SMOs) and international institutions, as well as with nation-states (cf. Snow et al. 2004; Chen 2005; Tanaka 2007; Ferree and Mueller 2004; della Porta and Tarrow 2005; Bandy and Smith 2005; Smith and Johnston 2002; Tarrow 2005). This section aims to contribute to some issues of research on transnational
organizations, as outlined by Ludger Pries in this volume, by analysing transnational feminist networks. The first intention is to look at the unit of analysis. By looking at transnational and international SMOs, some empirical evidence is taken beyond the transnational enterprise organizations on which organization research has concentrated until now. The focus is primarily on transnational women’s networks and, to that end, on introducing a new unit of analysis: the concept of reflexive, horizontal, and flexible transnational networks (see below). The second topic is to look at what Ludger Pies calls the units of reference
of transnational research and to relate it to the approach of context structure or opportunity structure in newer social movement theory (McAdam 1996; Tarrow 1996). Which kinds of social spaces are woven by the discourses and practices of transnational social movement organizations? Can they be characterized as “border crossing, pluri-local, societal spaces” (cf. Pries in this volume)? What kind of role do the nations and regions play in these transnational public spaces regarding the formation of the context structure of these organizations? Transnational feminist networks have interacted with international institutions, such as the UN and the EU, nation-states and regional communities and have influenced their policies and norms. What does this mean for the global social space they create as the units of reference?
