Women's Activism and Feminist Agency in Mozambique and Nicaragua

How and under what conditions is feminist consciousness created? What forms of mobilization foster feminist agency and what factors hinder its realization? These critical questions have been the subject of intense debate among feminist scholars in philosophy, political science, sociology and interdisciplinary women's studies for three decades. In this pioneering study, Jennifer Leigh Disney contributes to this debate by tracing the mobilization of women in two revolutionary contexts, comparing the strategies and the outcomes of various organizational forms developed in Mozambique and in Nicaragua over the past 30 years. By examining two socialist revolutions in the global South, Disney investigates the contours of women's emancipation outside the framework of liberal democracy and market economy. She interviews 146 women and men in the two countries to explore the comparative contribution of women's participation in subsistence and informal economies, political parties and civil society organizations. She also discusses military struggles against colonialism and imperialism in fostering feminist agency to provide a fascinating look at how each movement evolved and how it changed in a post-revolutionary climate.