Feminist anthropologyPub Date : 2025-12-12Epub Date: 2025-10-22DOI: 10.1002/fea2.70022
Andrea M. Lopez
{"title":"Rasquache vulnerability and theories of the flesh: Working through the flesh in (auto)ethnography as a site of disruption","authors":"Andrea M. Lopez","doi":"10.1002/fea2.70022","DOIUrl":"10.1002/fea2.70022","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In this article, I blend authoethnography and ethnography to activate a Chicanx feminist theory of the flesh, which is grounded in the sensibilities of vulnerability and rasquachismo. Rasquachismo is a politicized Mexican American visceral modality of being in the world—in art, in politics, in everydayness—that is rooted in purposeful defiance and historical hybridity. I apply this framework in conjunction with Weheliye's theory of enfleshment to write through two seemingly disparate ethnographic scenarios: the almost deadly hemorrhage of my uterus and the health injustice of my treatment and ethnographic work on racialized death in the overdose crisis in Washington, DC. I consider the theoretical and methodological interventions of practicing radical forms of vulnerability in our (auto)ethnographic writing and how this practice affirms connections between my enfleshment and the deep relationality to me as a scholar of necropolitics and unjust death. I demonstrate that this approach challenges current disciplinary norms of reflexivity as a “sufficient enough” form of ethical accountability in anthropology and reorients our theoretical lineages to be rooted in Black and Chicanx theories of the flesh that emphasize connective flesh that has been historically erased.</p>","PeriodicalId":73022,"journal":{"name":"Feminist anthropology","volume":"6 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2025-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/fea2.70022","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145739761","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Feminist anthropologyPub Date : 2025-12-12Epub Date: 2025-08-30DOI: 10.1002/fea2.70015
Katyayani Dalmia
{"title":"Ghinn: Colorism and gendered revulsion in North India","authors":"Katyayani Dalmia","doi":"10.1002/fea2.70015","DOIUrl":"10.1002/fea2.70015","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article examines how colorism is gendered in North India by foregrounding women's narratives of being subjected to <i>ghinn</i>—disgust or repugnance—around their skin tone. I argue that paying attention to the <i>ghinn</i> directed at dark skin shows how colorism here builds on casteism, and how there is a gendered dimension to it: <i>ghinn</i> at women perceived as outside the norms of feminine beauty, and <i>ghinn</i> at marginalized communities, are both, simultaneously, triggered by dark skin. How does the ideal of light-skinned beauty make living with dark skin difficult? In this paper, I analyze how for women perceived as dark, it is not the color of their skin in itself, but how it produces <i>ghinn</i> in those around them that has long-term effects on their sense of self.</p>","PeriodicalId":73022,"journal":{"name":"Feminist anthropology","volume":"6 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2025-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/fea2.70015","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145739815","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Feminist anthropologyPub Date : 2025-12-12Epub Date: 2025-07-10DOI: 10.1002/fea2.70011
Kelly Fayard
{"title":"Indigenous feminisms and anthropology","authors":"Kelly Fayard","doi":"10.1002/fea2.70011","DOIUrl":"10.1002/fea2.70011","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article situates Indigenous feminisms within anthropology by exploring the ways in which anthropology can benefit from an Indigenous feminist framework. Indigenous feminisms can be employed as a theory and a method. In this article, I argue that employing a wider array of feminisms in our practice is more inclusive and essential to our research.</p>","PeriodicalId":73022,"journal":{"name":"Feminist anthropology","volume":"6 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2025-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/fea2.70011","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145739538","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Feminist anthropologyPub Date : 2025-12-12Epub Date: 2025-08-01DOI: 10.1002/fea2.70012
Youn Joung Kim
{"title":"Sex workers' agency and activism in early 1900s Korea","authors":"Youn Joung Kim","doi":"10.1002/fea2.70012","DOIUrl":"10.1002/fea2.70012","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article addresses the question of whether the Korean sex workers' rights movement has uncritically imported Western pro-sex work theories. This article demonstrates how sex workers challenged stigma and discrimination, government controls, and anti-trafficking campaigns by the Christian women's movement in the early 1900s. Applying a transnational feminist perspective, I analyzed newspaper and magazine articles from the period that write about sex workers, as well as literature written by sex workers themselves. Long before the emergence of academic sex work theory, sex workers in Korea fought and stood in solidarity in defense of their labor and survival rights. Navigating their complex sociopolitical positions in an era characterized by women's liberation and notions of human equality, the advent of capitalism, the influx of socialist ideology, and Japanese colonialism, sex workers have forged their own lives and enacted radical political praxis from the front lines. It is hoped that this century-old history of sex workers' claims and rights movements serve as a basis for understanding that sex workers are the ones who know best what is needed to secure their rights, as they have the deepest understanding of the social and economic dimensions of their profession.</p>","PeriodicalId":73022,"journal":{"name":"Feminist anthropology","volume":"6 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2025-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/fea2.70012","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145739623","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Feminist anthropologyPub Date : 2025-12-12Epub Date: 2025-10-30DOI: 10.1002/fea2.70025
M. Gabriela Torres, Allison Bloom, Sreeparna Chattopadhyay, April Petillo
{"title":"New directions in feminist anthropology","authors":"M. Gabriela Torres, Allison Bloom, Sreeparna Chattopadhyay, April Petillo","doi":"10.1002/fea2.70025","DOIUrl":"10.1002/fea2.70025","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This issue showcases how the global breadth of feminist anthropology is reshaping both the foci and methodological toolkits for anthropology. With articles ethnographically located in Colombia, India, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, feminist anthropologists in this issue focus on agency and activism, kinship, gender expression, reproductive justice, and the ways we need to rethink the work of Anthropology.</p>","PeriodicalId":73022,"journal":{"name":"Feminist anthropology","volume":"6 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2025-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/fea2.70025","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145739817","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Feminist anthropologyPub Date : 2025-12-12Epub Date: 2025-10-20DOI: 10.1002/fea2.70021
Caroline Chautems
{"title":"Birthing on one's own terms: Reframing delivery mode choice within reproductive justice in Switzerland","authors":"Caroline Chautems","doi":"10.1002/fea2.70021","DOIUrl":"10.1002/fea2.70021","url":null,"abstract":"<p>A core principle of reproductive justice (RJ) is the right to have children under one's chosen conditions, emphasizing bodily autonomy. While RJ focuses on equitable access to parenthood, the choice of delivery mode is rarely analyzed through this lens. Some forgo parenthood rather than give birth vaginally; others prioritize vaginal birth despite medical indications for a cesarean. In response, a growing number of obstetricians acknowledge the importance of self-determination in decision-making once parents are adequately informed. However, others refuse to consider rationales beyond strictly evidence-based medicine, sometimes leading to forms of informal coercion. Based on ethnographic research in two Swiss public hospitals and interviews with parents and obstetricians, I examine parents’ trajectories and interactions with healthcare providers. I argue for reframing delivery mode choice within an RJ framework and propose radical compassion as a means to advance RJ in this context.</p>","PeriodicalId":73022,"journal":{"name":"Feminist anthropology","volume":"6 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2025-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/fea2.70021","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145739787","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Feminist anthropologyPub Date : 2025-12-12Epub Date: 2025-10-20DOI: 10.1002/fea2.70019
S. Y. Cheung
{"title":"The limits of women's choices in Japan: Pronatalism, autonomy, and narratives of sexual risk in the era of the pill","authors":"S. Y. Cheung","doi":"10.1002/fea2.70019","DOIUrl":"10.1002/fea2.70019","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The continued assault on women's reproductive freedoms has dampened the critique of the liberal feminist logics of autonomy in reproductive rights activism. This article centers on the Pill, a longtime symbol of women's empowerment, to reorient debates about individual choice. While critical work has recognized the stratified nature of birth control, the literature adheres to a dialectic of difference in which the Pill extends the autonomy of privileged women while oppressing structurally marginalized women. Breaking this dualism, this article explores the Pill's uptake among otherwise privileged, middle-class women in contemporary Japan, where the Pill's offer of autonomy introduces new medical, sexual, and social risks that shape women's resistance to making reproduction a matter of individual responsibility and control. By examining the narratives of 48 pill users in Tokyo, I show how, instead of autonomy, women ask for the sharing of reproductive risk and responsibility through contraceptive practices that promote relational forms of care. Situating women's stories against the backdrop of pronatalism and everyday gender inequality in Japan, I show how the multiple layers of structural injustice that middle-class women navigate make it impossible to sustain a fantasy that one can be empowered by a technology that offers individual choice.</p>","PeriodicalId":73022,"journal":{"name":"Feminist anthropology","volume":"6 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2025-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/fea2.70019","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145739788","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Feminist anthropologyPub Date : 2025-12-12Epub Date: 2025-10-22DOI: 10.1002/fea2.70020
Hélène B. Comer, Katherine A. Mason, Heather M. Wurtz, Sarah S. Willen
{"title":"Cyberspatial agency: Experimenting with gender expression in digital worlds amid the physical isolation of the United States COVID-19 pandemic","authors":"Hélène B. Comer, Katherine A. Mason, Heather M. Wurtz, Sarah S. Willen","doi":"10.1002/fea2.70020","DOIUrl":"10.1002/fea2.70020","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In this article, we show how the COVID-19 pandemic facilitated experimentation with gender expression via a process that we call <i>cyberspatial agency</i>. During the pandemic in the United States, millions of people were simultaneously physically isolated from one another while also experiencing an unprecedented level of digital hyper-connectedness. In avoiding the public gaze while also having the ability to carefully curate the online communities where they spent most of their days, gender-diverse individuals in our study experienced an enhanced sense of freedom to stretch and bend their gender expression. They collaborated with algorithms and platforms to access new models for linguistic and visual expression, resulting in considerable experimentation and the potential for longer-term changes in gender identity that may last well beyond the pandemic. Our findings from this exploratory study suggest a need to rethink the relationship between visibility and queerness in the post-COVID-19, Trump-era digital age in the United States.</p>","PeriodicalId":73022,"journal":{"name":"Feminist anthropology","volume":"6 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2025-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/fea2.70020","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145751123","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Feminist anthropologyPub Date : 2025-12-12Epub Date: 2025-09-24DOI: 10.1002/fea2.70018
Tatiana Sánchez Parra
{"title":"Weaving reproductive justice: Storytelling and conflict-related reproductive violence in Colombia","authors":"Tatiana Sánchez Parra","doi":"10.1002/fea2.70018","DOIUrl":"10.1002/fea2.70018","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The exhibition “Weaving reproductive justice: Conflict and peace in Colombia,” which is the result of ethnographic, feminist, and arts-based research, is a collaborative storytelling experience about conflict-related reproductive violence. Through patchwork, embroidery, and written words, the exhibition takes visitors into the lives of Afro-Colombian women who became pregnant as a result of conflict-related sexual violence. The exhibition shows that their experiences of parenthood exceed the grammar of gendered victimhood or reproductive rights. In this article, I examine the conceptual and methodological displacements that enabled us to create stories that talk about their experiences of reproductive violence without centering victimization, but their life-sustaining forces in war contexts. This entailed engaging with storytelling as a site of knowledge production where women's experiences, notions, and practices of sexuality, procreation, and care—not as victims-survivors—met the researcher's situated academic lens.</p>","PeriodicalId":73022,"journal":{"name":"Feminist anthropology","volume":"6 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2025-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/fea2.70018","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145751220","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}