Catherine J. Irving

Community in Cyberspace: Gender, Social Movement Learning, and the Internet

Feminist nonprofit organizations are sites of informal and nonformal learning where citizens learn advocacy, literacy, and the practices of social democracy. With the growing use of information and communication technologies in the nonprofit sector, there are questions as to how well organizations are able to make use of this technology to further their goals of promoting social movement learning and activism. This article reports on a systematic analysis of 100 websites for feminist organizations in Canada. Websites are evaluated for content, currency, and maintenance to determine how well these sites contribute to the work of these organizations. Implications are drawn for learning and teaching in the community-based sphere.

Partnering for research: A critical discourse analysis

Using a critical discourse analysis, informed by poststructuralist theory, we explore the research phenomenon of coerced partnership. This lens allows us to pay attention to the social relations of power operating in knowledge generation processes, especially as they affect feminist researchers in adult education. We propose an alternative vision of partnership which politicizes the term partnership, attends to civil society, maps resistances and values the process by all partners.

Network Feminism and Social Movement Learning

The mass protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square during the 2011 Egyptian revolution garnered global media attention. The stories that received less attention were the incidents of harassment and abuse endured by women participants. To draw attention to the violence women faced then, and on an ongoing basis, one young woman, Nihal Saad Zaghloul, began connecting with others through social media.

Adult Education and the Community

The Raging Grannies defy all stereotypes of older women. Organized globally through local chapters, their members are feminists in “granny-like” costumes who sing protest songs about peace and environmental justice. Seemingly harmless “old women,” they create parodies of traditional songs and sing them in public at rallies and protests. Their chronicler, Carole Roy (2004), sees them as subversive women who utilize both humour and music to communicate and teach citizens about the world they want for themselves and their children and grandchildren.

The Nexus of Policy, Practice, and Payment1

The Charter of Feminist Principles for African Feminists provides a new model of leadership for African women. Rather than promote the single, independent, charismatic leader, it proposes in this Charter to promote collective leadership that inspires hope, builds on group strengths, and which works counter to patriarchy.

Social Transformative Learning and Women1

The Activist Mothers of Xalapa is a group of women in the state of Veracruz, Mexico who provide support for each other in a political struggle with a patriarchal and corrupt government that has allowed their children to be taken from them in custody hearings where false charges are often trumped up against them (Facio, 2013b). This movement draws upon the strong devotion or respect for mothers in Latin cultures and provides a space for mothers to share grief and to take action as a united group.

Religion, Women, and Adult Education

Of all the factors that affect women’s lives internationally, religious fundamentalism is one of the most serious in that it has implications for women’s well-being and health and for the population at large. Given the influence that religions, especially fundamentalist factions, have in the fabric of societies worldwide, it is important to examine their place and their effects.

Critical Feminist Pedagogy

Learning about women’s oppression and the path towards social justice leads to new ways of understanding the issues, as well as new ways of understanding and enacting the learning process itself. Feminist pedagogy draws strength from its engagement with feminism and vice versa.

Power, Resistance and Informal Learning1

In 1977, 14 women met to form the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo to find out what had happened to their children who were disappearing in government raids and abductions during Argentina’s Dirty War. The women started marching peacefully in front of the presidential palace to draw attention to the disappeared and to demand the government answer for its crimes and its part in killing their youth.

Researching for and with the Community of Women1

Collaborative research has the potential to support the work of feminist social and political activism, providing an opportunity for grassroots organizations to come together and to gather the evidence they need to advocate for change. Networks of women’s organizations in Africa, for instance, demonstrate this documentation and mobilizing potential.