To oppose hegemonic systems of oppression in terms of (transcultural) sisterhood has always been a great field of interest on feminist agendas. But many feminist scholars, especially Black feminists like Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989) or bell hooks (1984), made it clear that building feminist solidarity on an unreflected generalized claim of womyn* being the victims of patriarchy without consideration of race, class, sexuality and nationality – to name only a few of relevant intersecting categories –, won´t help the feminist movement to overcome the reproduction of the same hegemonic patterns they assert to fight against. Underlining, Chandra T. Mohanty´s (2002) transcultural feminist solidarity model proposes the relevance of finding common grounds of patriarchal, and therefore capitalist, domination and struggle, but also differences – on a local as well as on a global perspective. Whilst Michel Foucault (1994) stated that systems of power systematically produce self-disciplining individuals to keep the status-quo intact, it seems to be a necessity to form feminist solidarity as well as to question violently imposed categories as a tool of oppression. Nevertheless, these categories are shaping the performativity of identities, the very reality people are living upon, and therefore can´t be dismissed as “just” hegemonic. As these categories form a central structurally enforced order of society, the analysis of the categories themselves is essential. But to be able to examine the multilayered forms of oppression, it´s even more important to look at the multilayered intersections these categories are showing and, further, to fragmentize these categories to overcome simplifying intersectional approaches that refer to distinct and fixed subject positionings. Accordingly, Jasbir K. Puar (2007) suggests with her assemblage concept to complement and complicate intersectionality to meet identity constructions in their fragmentarity corresponding to aspects of spatiality and temporality, and hereby “give identities back their threatening mobility” (Puar, 2007). By applying this approach of fragmentized intersectionality, the significance of one´s identity as one of uncountable layers could become more visible and has the potential for opening ways to find a solid ground to enable transcultural feminist solidarity.

Sonja Köhler is a PhD-student at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, in the field of Critical Social and Gender Studies. She is a member of the doctoral program “Gender and gender relations in transformation”, and further, a scholarship holder of the researcher excellence grant of the University of Innsbruck. In her dissertation project she deals with the topic of Jewish-religious feminism in Israel. Therefore, she´s currently working on her dissertation at the Ben-Gurion-University of the Negev in Be´er Sheva, Israel. As coming from the academical background of Psychology and Social Pedagogy, her research interests are focusing on social and intrapersonal dynamics and, more specifically, feminism, feminist critique of power and feminist activism. Believing in the necessity of putting theory into praxis to destabilize patriarchy, and thus, to make life more just, Sonja Köhler is trying to conduct valuable research for activists, and further, is a feminist activist herself.

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Contact information:

Sonja Köhler

Current address:
HaMishlatim 4, 6676108 Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel

Austrian address:
Hauptstraße 51, 8401 Kalsdorf, Austria

Israeli telephone number: +972 53 599 3697
Austrian telephone number: +43 650 2741878

E-Mail: sonja.koehler@gmx.at