Critical Chatter

Critical Chatter is the politicised conversation by which women activists in South East Asia negotiate the possibilities and pitfalls of human rights in their activism for social change. Based on conversations with women activists in Malaysia, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Thailand and women from Burma living along the Thai Burma border, this book argues that critical chatter reflects the challenges of universality in human rights and feminism. But rather than outright reject, through critical chatter women activists produce a form of strategic universality. This enables the women activists to tap into a universal framework of human rights, while simultaneously acknowledging its failure to resonate among women in the community and its failure to recognise the experiences of women in the articulation of human rights standards. This book would be of interest to academics and activists interested in current challenges to social activism theory and practice, or in the potential application of a human rights framework to their work.

Christine Alder is a human rights activist and Researcher at the University of Melbourne.