As the semester is coming to an end, I have been moving forward with my final project on second wave feminism in a transnational and intersectional perspective but also looking back at some of the foundational readings of the semester. Indeed, exploring those readings and the questions it raised on transnational history provided me with important insights and highlighted some dimensions of my project which I had not thought of yet.
For instance, looking back at the week 4 readings and my blogpost, the limits of transnational or global history which were highlighted in those articles along with ideas to move past those issues and propose a truly inclusive and socially transformative way of making history have largely influenced how I have approached my project and offered me a critical lens through which I could analyze it. Green’s article, which highlighted how migrants although they are primary examples of transnational actors are also still largely impacted and dependant on the national state, was particularly interesting and raised some of the questions guiding my final project such as “How did national or local contexts influence the circulation of ideas and shape specific concerns of the feminist movements of the second wave”. Similarly, I aim at inscribing my final project within some of the reflections which came up in the European University Institution seminar on global history. The necessity to deconstruct the dichotomy between margins and center and offer an approach which tries to grow out of western frameworks have inspired me a lot, notably regarding how we periodize and spatialize the second wave of feminism.
More generally, the readings proposed throughout the semester as well as the discussions we had during the tutorials have allowed me to build a theoretical framework anchored in concrete examples which has been extremely useful in constructing my final project and which I am sure will continue to be useful in the future.