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Beyond Identity Politics
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Beyond Identity Politics
Feminism, Power and Politics

  • Moya Lloyd - Queen Mary, University of London, UK


April 2005 | 208 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd
Recent debates in contemporary feminist theory have been dominated by the relation between identity and politics. Beyond Identity Politics examines the implications of recent theorizing on difference, identity and subjectivity for theories of patriarchy and feminist politics.

Organised around the three central themes of subjectivity, power and politics, this book focuses on a question which feminists struggled with and were divided by throughout the last decade, that is: how to theorize the relation between the subject and politics. In this thoughtful engagement with these debates Moya Lloyd argues that the turn to the subject in process does not entail the demise of feminist politics as many feminists have argued. She demonstrates how key ideas such as agency, power and domination take on a new shape as a consequence of this radical rethinking of the subject-politics relation and how the role of feminist political theory becomes centred upon critique.

A resource for feminist theorists, women's and gender studies students, as well as political and social theorists, this is a carefully composed and wide-ranging text, which provides important insights into one of contemporary feminism's most central concerns.

 
Introduction
The Subject and Politics

 
 
Re-Imagining the Feminist Subject
 
Accounting for Specificity and Difference
 
Essentialism - A Risk Worth Taking?
 
Power and Domination
 
Agenda and Resistance
 
The Politics of Critique
 
Politics and Parody
 
Radical Democracy and Inessential Coalitions
 
Conclusion
Interrogating The Political

 

"Lloyd begins by addressing the complex, dynamic, unstable, and messy relationship between subject constitution and politics. She focuses on the space between essentialism and antiessentialism to examine what feminist politics looks like from the perspective of fluid and open identities. Rather than leading to the demise of feminist politics, this approach, she argues, gives ideas about power, domination, agency, and resistance a more powerful ability to critique."

C. Shrewsbury
Emeritus, Minnesota State University, Mankato
CHOICE

"A core addition to academic library Women's Studies and Political Science reference collections, Beyond Identity Politics is very strongly recommended for anyone searching for a grasp of modern gender politics concerning the treatment and perspectives of women in the political arena."

Wisconsin Bookwatch
June 2006
The Political Science Shelf

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