Postmodernist Feminist Theorizing and Development Policy and Practice in the Anglophone Caribbean: The Barbados Case

Abstract

Explores the application of a postmodern feminist perspective to women's lives in the anglophone Caribbean, focusing on Barbados. It is shown that the postmodern perspective explains many political actions taken by Anglo-Caribbean women, without employing the universalist or hegemonic tendencies of the more liberal or social feminist frameworks that misinterpret or even ignore such actions. Moreover, in that it stresses diversity, difference, & positionality, the postmodern approach is taken to recognize women's agency, the power of women's knowledge, & the tradition of resistance among Caribbean women much more than alternatives. The postmodernist perspective is described as a challenge to Caribbean feminists to build feminist theories from the bottom up on the basis of indigenous experience & knowledge of those they are purporting to assist. D. M. Smith