•  
  •  
 

Jane S. C. Ku

Abstract

Interviews with racialized minority immigrant women activist-managers in immigrant service sector in Toronto, Canada demonstrate how women construct their activist identities. An anti-racist post-colonial feminist framework is used to explore their narrative strategies and to show that their activist possibilities are constrained by their identities. Activism is limited to advocating for their ethnic community in multicultural politics that is structured by post-colonial “speaking” configuration that allows “native informants” to represent their communities as culturally alien and to authorize state management of racial and ethnic differences. The interviews also show the complexities of immigrant women’s political agency as they navigate the limiting politics.

Author Biography

Jane Ku is an Assistant Professor cross appointed to the Department of Sociology Anthropology, and the Women’s Studies Program at the University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Her interest in immigrant women’s activism and immigrant settlement results partly from her own experience as an immigrant and working in Toronto with new immigrants. Before becoming an academic, she worked with anti-racist feminist activists and people of colour community. She teaches courses on race, gender and sexuality.

Download

Share

COinS