ABSTRACT
The preceding four case studies have illustrated diverse circumstances within which different women engage with the everyday expressions of social change. Their responses, which often require considerable effort and energy in difficult circumstances, produce a multiplicity of ‘new5 femininities. The femininities discussed in these chapters are constituted in part in relation to a range of processes which we identified in Chapter 2 as key elements of the large-scale economic, cultural and political changes involved in globalisation, the spread of neo-liberalism and processes of development and post-communist transition. Thus new femininities are constituted in relation to changes in employment, access to resources, provision of public and private services, as well as the circulation of people through migration. Furthermore, the case studies indicate the importance for new femininities of the often hybrid processes involved in the circulation of cultural, political and religious ideas, ideologies and practices. Each case study also deals explicitly with the multiple constitution of femininities which was identified in Chapter 2 as a significant theme in thinking about changing gendered identities.
