Written by Elora Chowdhury, Transnationalism Reversed: Women Organizing against Gendered Violence in Bangladesh covers the reality, difficulties, and far-reaching implications of women’s organizations opposing gender-related violence. At first sight, the scope of the work seems to be fairly narrow, as the author analyzes acid attacks specifically and mainly covers the activities of one non-governmental organization (NGO), Dhaka-based Naripokkho.
However, this seemingly modest approach allows the author to provide valuable insights into the issues that go far beyond one specific type of gendered violence against women as addressed by one specific organization. Chowdhury’s analysis of the topic’s different aspects touches upon the power dynamics in the organizations that attempt addressing it, the cultural narratives their approaches promote, and their implication for the efficiency of said efforts. The author’s experience and cultural identity also serve as a valuable asset in research. The book covers national and transnational aspects of fighting gendered violence in Bangladesh well and warns about the dangers of orientalism and NGOization of the efforts, although it could do more to explore other alternatives.
The theme of the book, as the title suggests, is women’s organization to oppose and combat gendered violence, such as acid attacks, in Bangladesh. Importantly for the general audience, the author provides sufficient information for the reader not acquainted with the issue to understand the social and historical context of this violence. As she points out, the incidence of acid-throwing has grown in Bangladesh in the late 20th century (Chowdhury xiii).
She notes that the majority of survivors of acid attacks were teenagers and females (Chowdhury 61). Chowdhury also informs the reader scope of acid violence shifted a bit in the 21st century, but young women still constitute the majority of victims (xiv). Motivations and rationalizations behind these acts of gendered violence differ widely and are rooted in a considerable number of interpersonal and social problems. Quoting the UNICEF report, Chowdhury lists such reasons as “rejection of sexual advances from men, refusal of marriage proposals, family or land disputes, vengeance, and unmet dowry demands” (xv). Thus, the book does a good job of introducing the audience to the topic early on, which is particularly important considering how specific it is.
The book’s main thesis is that the primary work of putting gendered violence and, specifically, acid attacks against women in Bangladesh in a global spotlight was done by the local grassroots organizations. According to the author, it was local organizations, such as Dhaka-based Naripokkho, which resurfaces time and again in the course of the book, that promoted attention to the issue both domestically and abroad. In Chowdhury’s own words, these organizations were instrumental in creating “both the conceptual and organizational groundwork for placing acid violence against women and girls in Bangladesh into the global landscape” (xvi).
However, the impact of the recognition of acid attacks in Bangladesh as a serious current issue among gendered human rights violations was not universally positive. On the one hand, the topic’s rise to prominence in the late 1990s tended to overshadow the role of Bangladeshi organizations that pioneered the efforts against acid throwing. In this respect, Chowdhury’s work is an attempt to restore historical justice. Yet, apart from that and more importantly, the globalization of the issue led to its incorporation by global Western feminist narratives with some less-than-desirable consequences.
The author’s methodology corresponds exceptionally well to her experience in the field and her cultural identity, providing for a strong overall result. Chowdhury has been concerned about gendered violence in Bangladesh in different capacities for a long time. She had begun covering acid violence as a reporter and then shifted to studying it as a researcher, which provides her with the perspective of a participant-observer (Chowdhury xv). This fact, as well as her cultural identity, also allows her to gather information better. Much of the book is based on interviews with acid violence survivors, such as Bina Akhter (Chowdhury 87-100).
One can reasonably assume that the latter would not be as eager to share her impressions with a white man or woman who only has second-hand knowledge of the reality of acid attacks in Bangladesh. As such, the author’s experience, identity, and the qualitative interview-based approach to research synergize exceptionally well in the case of Transnationalism Reversed.
One of the negative impacts of the problem’s globalization is that NGOs tend to think and operate in terms rooted in the Western feminist tradition. As a result, the groups that these NGOs presumably aim to help find themselves forced into the structures imposed on them from without. The result is that the women subjected to gendered violence, including acid attacks, are expected to follow the “victim, survivor, activist” trajectory that the NGOs envisage for them (Chowdhury 85).
The author elaborates on this issue more when covering the story of Bina Akhter, an acid attack survivor who was the public face of the campaign against acid attacks in the late 1990s. When traveling across the trajectory outlined above, she constantly felt “pressured by the expectations of these supporters and funders” (Chowdhury 95). Moreover, when she attempted to gain political asylum in the USA, she faced considerable opposition on the parts of Healing the Children, an NGO that transported her to the country (Chowdhury 98). To summarize, globalization of the issue led to transnational NGOs creating strict narrative trajectories for the attack survivors and even punishing people for deviating from them.
Another important issue that Chowdhury explores through its relation to acid attacks against women in Bangladesh is how the globalization of the issue can support and promote its orientalist depictions. As the author points out, when Western organizations become dominating the struggle for the right of the female population in non-Western countries, it is hard to avoid representations with racial implications that invoke orientalist tropes. The best description for the resulting narrative, as summed up on the book’s pages, is “white men are saving brown women from brown men” (Chowdhury 17).
As one can easily see, this representation promotes patriarchal and racial power structures instead of opposing them, and it only becomes stronger the more Western media sensationalize the plight of women in third-world countries. Consequently, the globalization and NGOization of the struggle against gendered violence all too often “essentializes rescuers and victims on either side of the North-South divide” (Chowdhury xix). This promotion of inherently colonial power structures is hardly conducive to an effective long-term solution to the gendered violence problem in Bangladesh and can be harmful in other respects as well.
However, while the author covers the downsides and perils that come with the NGOization of the topic of acid violence in Bangladesh, she does not pay that much attention to the possible positive alternatives. The book provides ample evidence to support the author’s notion that NGOization impedes the attempts to create “more autonomous and transformative alliances across class, ethnicity, and grassroots-based agendas” (Chowdhury 167).
At the same time, it does not reflect at any substantial length what can be done about it and what are the more desirable alternatives. As a result, the reader is left with a sufficiently clear understanding of the dangers of the globalization of NGOization of the struggle against gendered violence, it is still unclear what would be better. The book could certainly benefit from a discussion of plausible alternatives that offer better tradeoffs. That being said, such a task is not necessarily within the book’s scope, meaning this downside does not detract from the study’s overall quality that much.
As one can see, Chowdhury’s Transnationalism Reversed is an exceptionally good study on gendered violence and many related issues. While the book’s central topic – acid attacks against women in Bangladesh – is fairly narrow, the author succeeds in using it to address the problems of globalization, NGOization, and orientalism in contemporary human rights campaigns. Chowdhury convincingly shoes that it was local organizations that pioneered the struggle for women’s rights in this respect, while the globalized NGOs only stepped in later, and their influence was not always for the best.
The author’s cultural identity and experience with the topic as a participant-observer is also an important asset that corresponds perfectly to her qualitative approach that relies heavily on in-depth interviews. Admittedly, the book would be even better if, apart from discussing the dangers inherent in the NGOization of the struggle for women’s rights, it also explored possible alternatives more. Yet this is but a small shortcoming of a generally excellent piece of research that showcases how even a narrow and specific theme may be used to address a wide range of issues.
Work Cited
Chowdhury, Elora H. Transnationalism Reversed: Women Organizing against Gendered Violence in Bangladesh. State University of New York Press, 2011.