ABSTRACT
This chapter emerges from the challenge to think through how antiviolence work can engage with the notion of imperialism, an important component of current transnational theories. Both Marxist and postcolonial thought form fundamental bases for transnational feminist work, which in turn frames each as inadequate to capture the gendered effects of globalized capitalism. In her useful overview (2002), Breny Mendoza illustrates how an important shift has occurred in thinking about transnationality and empire among feminists and others. Whereas earlier theories focused on the nation-state as a base for imperial power, more recent work, notably that of Hardt and Negri (2000), discusses a “perfecting of imperialism” under conditions of globalization and weakened nation-states. Sovereignty has largely passed from states to transnational capital, which can “overdetermine the distinct centers of power of capitalism in a way it could not do previously” (Mendoza 2002: 298). Thus, with support of global institutions, what Hardt and Negri call imperial sovereignty “functions not by force, but by the capacity to present itself as representative of right and order and of the superior ethical principles that can be applied to all societies” (Mendoza 2002: 298).
