| This project explores the role that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), or policies of economic and political globalization, play in fomenting transnational and oppositional political organizing. I interrogate transnational women's (often feminist) political activism around globalization of the economy in Mexico, Canada and the United States. I highlight the possibilities and difficulties that globalization engenders for the establishment and sustainability of transnational political alliances. I appraise the attempts by non-govern mental organizations to construct a new regional "American" self-definition and argue that the politics of identity---gender, race, nation---are fundamental to unraveling the possibilities for and limitations of transnational advocacy networks.; As the case of North American integration suggests, grassroots organizations are addressing the impact of globalization on the quality of life in their communities. Despite high rates of participation by non-governmental organizations generally, and the fact that gender and race clearly structure economic opportunities, the participation of women's NGOs varied widely among the three signatory nations. Indeed, women's organizations in Canada were among the vanguard of organizing efforts, while women's organizations in Mexico, and especially the United States, were more peripheral to the political debate. My exploration of this variation highlights the institutional, national and gendered politics of creating cross-national political alliances. In doing so, I elucidate the role that narratives of gender, race, and nationalism play in North American economic integration and in policies of globalization more generally.; Furthermore, I argue that the extent to which national political actors engage in transnational political organizing is conditioned not only by changes at the systemic level but perhaps even more importantly, on differences in the domestic political and institutional relationships of those actors. While globalization and the politics of identity created opportunities for cross-border coalitions, the heterogeneity of women's identities and the way that globalization paradoxically amplifies difference complicates cross-border advocacy work. This work contributes to the integration of critical understandings of gender and race in debates about macro-economic policy and political organizing by analyzing efforts to create a feminist counter-hegemonic transnational political space in the "new" North America. |
