Marta Postigo, Dr.
Visiting Post-doctoral scholar
PPhiG / CoE PolCon
Marta Postigo Asenjo
Universidad de Málaga
Departamento de Filosofía, Área de Filosofía Moral
Campus de Teatinos 29071 Málaga
Tel. +34 95 213 18 06
email: martapostigo@uma.es
Marta Postigo Asenjo (October 1st 2007- September 15th 2008)
Visiting scholar at the Finnish Centre of Excellence in Political Thought and Conceptual Change, (Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of Jyväskylä), working within the Politics of Philosophy and Gender (PPhiG) research group led by professor Tuija Pulkkinen, on a research project called Feminism and liberalism in a multicultural context, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science.
Research interests
My postdoctoral research project, Feminism and liberalism in a multicultural context, explores the interaction between three different notions: feminism, liberalism and multiculturalism. More precisely, it aims at situating feminist debates in the context of globalization and multiculturalism.
In addition, I attempt to explore some of the possible consequences that globalization has for citizenship. Nowadays, it is commonly argued that cultures and communities interact as a consequence of the market relations, telecommunication-technologies and human migrations. Globalization seems to foster, at the same time, intra- and trans-national identities that transcend citizenship ties and nation-states’ boundaries. As some authors have pointed out, one of the central consequences of globalization is the fact that the boundaries of the nation states become blurred (Held, Beck, Grande and also Castells). Taking into account this fact, it can be argued that nation-state’s sovereignty is being challenged both from inside and outside states’ boundaries. On one hand, the globalization process makes possible world-wide interactions, on the other, it seems to facilitate the formation of communitarian ties and identifications, some of them grounded on religious, cultural, language or/and ethnic homogeneities. The paradoxical dimension of globalization is then its global-local tension, namely, the fact that world-wide networks, human interactions and communications, are balanced by communitarian identifications and loyalties which transcend the boundaries of citizenship. One of the purposes of my research is to explore whether globalization is helping to enhance universal common values and equality among nations and communities or rather to promote non-democratic and communitarian cleavage.
On the other hand, market relations, telecommunications and cultural interactions all bring about new opportunities for women, but they also create new challenges for them. Feminist thinkers and activists are deeply concerned with transnational politics and ethics, with the theories of cosmopolitanism, and with citizenship and cultural interactions as wells. In short, feminists are taking, and must take, part in the reflections on globalization and multiculturalism.
As professor Nancy Fraser has pointed out, since the sixties of the past century, gender-based and feminists movements have been responsible for the “recognition” shift of the Left discourses. Notwithstanding, in contemporary liberal citizenships cultural minorities and gender-based movements conflict very often with each other. Women’s rights become a source of controversy when cultural communities claim their differences.
To conclude, in my research I attempt to compare and to analyse three different theoretical trends: First, theories on globalization and cosmopolitanism as they are conceived by contemporary sociologists and political scientists (such as Held, Beck, Grande and Castells); second, I would like to contrast these proposals with some other opinions which are reluctant to admit the allegedly ineradicable dimension of globalization, and which are connected to traditional (modern) conceptions of politics and democracy (Mouffe and Laclau). Finally, I attempt to analyze the effects that trans-, intra- and supra- national identities and communities have on women’s rights and feminists achievements (Okin, Benhabib, Nussbaum).
Previous research
My doctoral research project, Gender and equality of opportunity: feminist theory and its moral and political implications, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science, was supervised by professor José María Rosales at the Department of Philosophy, University of Málaga (Spain). I defended my PhD at the University of Málaga, in March 2006.