Women thinking globally, acting locally

Professor Valerie Sperling's research

The end of the 20th century was a time of turmoil in Eastern Europe as the Soviet Union broke apart and Soviet Communism lost its grip on neighboring countries. Go to an online interview with Devon about her Anton Fellowship research using Communist Party archives or read on to find out about Valerie Sperling's research into the relationship between global feminism and women's activism in Russia. Professor Sperling is also the author of the book Organizing Women in Contemporary Russia.

A case study from Russia

For decades, social activists have recognized the importance of joining forces at a global level to address issues such as women's rights, the environment, and labor rights. (Scholars use the phrase "transnational advocacy networks" to describe these international connections formed to promote social change.)

In this spirit of international cooperation, American and Russian women activists joined forces in 1995 and 1996 to conduct a series of three-day seminars held in six different regions in Russia. The purpose of the seminars was to develop a 'woman's agenda' for each region. Seminar participants were highly-educated, mostly professional women. The activists hoped that coalitions of local Russian women's groups could then work together to carry out the agendas when the seminars were concluded.

Seeking an understanding of global-local interaction

Professor Valerie Sperling used the Russian seminars as a case study to gain insight into the relationship between Western feminist activists and local women's movements. She collaborated on this research with

sociologist Myra Marx Ferree (University of Wisconsin at Madison)
sociologist Barbara Risman (North Carolina State University)
Russian feminist scholar Valentina Konstantinova

The researchers collected data for their study in several ways:

They designed and administered an attitude survey and biographical data form to seminar participants.
They observed and took notes at the seminars.
They conducted focus groups with seminar participants to gain an understanding of how the participants viewed feminism and women's status.
They conducted interviews with seminar leaders and two of the seminar site coordinators.

The Russian seminars were organized by an American feminist with extensive lobbying experience in Washington, D.C. and her Russian colleague. Money to finance the seminars was provided by two agencies based in the United States. The particulars of this case study illustrate that, while sharing many goals in common, activists working globally and those acting at a local level can have important differences that may lead to conflict:

Many activists acting internationally have gained their organizing experience in Western countries. As a result they may possess cultural values that do not translate effectively to local settings or to non-Western cultures.
Global activists often have access to (Western) financial and informational resources not available to their colleagues acting at the local level.
Activists operating at an international level often possess more and broader-based organizing experience that those operating at a local level. As a result, global activists may see themselves in the role of teacher to less experienced, locally-based colleagues. Lack of sensitivity in this regard can lead to resentment and charges of elitism.

Global and local activists benefit from sharing experiences and resources

In an article published in the renowned women's studies journal Signs, Sperling and her colleagues analyzed their data from the seminars and offered the following conclusions about the interaction between global and local women's activism:

Differences in cultural values and needs can color activist goals at the local level. For example, in Russia many women do not identify with the term feminist, although they strongly support the need to elevate women's status and raise consciousness about gender inequality. But they also see a need for all-female groups to address a variety of non-gender related issues.
Often women organizing at a local level do not see what they do as "politics", because their activities take place outside the official, (usually) male-dominated, political machine. Global activists can provide recognition and a crucial sense of legitimacy to women organizing at the local level.
Internationally based funding for social action has both positive and negative consequences at the local level.

From a positive standpoint funding helps to build local organizations and to increase regional and national networking.
In a negative context funding can lead to competition and jealousy between local groups as they bid for attention and resources from their foreign organizations. Bureaucracy can expand with the need to account for and justify spending. Internationally based funding may also contribute to a decline in the tactics of mass mobilization characteristic of early social activism. Financial backers prefer to give their money to organizations composed of experienced, accountable, identifiable individuals.

Both local and global activists benefit from their mutual interaction, but in different ways and not always equally. Each contributes strategies and experiences that the other can learn from. But global activists especially can use "success" in the local arena to increase their credibility with international funding agencies and to further their careers.

*glasnost and perestroika are Russian words characterizing the policies of "openness" in information dissemination and political and economic restructuring initiated under Soviet Union President Gorbachev in the late 1980s.