ABSTRACT
In this chapter I elaborate on the postcolonial feminist legal project and how it provides an analytical lens through which to view issues of sexuality and law, and a locational framework that decentres the ‘West’ and the liberal venture in their role as providing the primary grid of analysis. The first section briefly discusses the arguments presented in favour of ‘liberal internationalism’ as a device for addressing violence and discrimination against women. I specifically examine the arguments presented by Martha Nussbaum in Sex and Social Justice. This text is of interest partly because it addresses the themes of sexuality and law that are relevant to this book, and also because it provides a strong endorsement of the liberal project as an international project with a universal recipe for ‘women [in the third world] fighting against hunger and illiteracy and inherently unequal legal systems’ (Nussbaum, 1999, p 6). I then examine the features of postcolonial theory and subaltern studies that expose some of the assumptions on which liberal claims are based, especially its claim to provide a universal remedy for the injustices experienced by women, particularly in the global South. More importantly, the discussion provides an analytical framework that is better equipped to address the rights and claims of women and other subaltern subjects in the postcolonial world and elsewhere.
