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ABSTRACT
This article explores the workings of gender expertise inside the institutions of the international governance system as it engages with faith-based actors. Utilizing narratives of gender experts, documentary analysis, and observation, I focus on these experts’ encounters regarding gender equality and women’s rights with religious leaders, religious actors, and conservative governments. Focusing on episodes in which the terms “cultural difference” and “religion” are used synonymously, first, I show how encounters between transnational actors can play a role in hegemonic interpretations of these terms. Second, I explore how powerful actors can become more authoritative in making claims of cultural difference or how the existing distribution of power may be disrupted. I contend that these power relations affect discussions of gender equality. My goal is to contribute to feminist debates by highlighting the ways in which these transnational interactions disrupt assumptions of West versus East. Paying attention to these complex processes can challenge ethnocentric and racist discourses without taking claims of cultural difference at face value.
Acknowledgments
I conducted this research during my time as a Visiting Scholar at the Gender Centre of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in 2017/2018. The research was made possible by a Marie Curie Individual Fellowship (IF) grant and sabbatical leave from Koç University. I am grateful to Elisabeth Prügl, the director of the Gender Centre, every discussion with whom produced a landmark in my research. I am also grateful to Claire Somerville and every other member of the Centre, from whom I learned of the intricacies of researching International Geneva. This research would not have been possible had it not been for all of the gender experts who graciously agreed to be interviewed and I am indebted to them. Finally, I would like to thank the two anonymous referees for their incredibly constructive comments and suggestions.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 All interviewees have been anonymized, except for Karam, who requested otherwise.
2 Musawah is a network of organizations, legal practitioners, and scholars challenging orthodox Islamic jurisprudence on the family. See http://www.musawah.org/about/.
3 The full text of CEDAW is available at UN Women (Citationn.d.).
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Özlem Altan-Olcay
Özlem Altan-Olcay received her PhD in Political Science from New York University and is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of International Relations at Koç University, Istanbul, Turkey. Her research interests include citizenship studies and gender and development. Her most recent articles have appeared in Development and Change, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Gender, Place and Culture, Sociology, Social Politics, and Women’s Studies International Forum. She has recently co-authored The American Passport: National Citizenship in the Age of Transnationalism (2020).