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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Ruth HoughtonORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press. Feminists and women activists use manifestos to express their frustrations with legal and political systems, expose the harms suffered in their lived experiences under patriarchy, colonialism and capitalism, and call for radical political, legal and social change. This special issue on feminist manifestos and global constitutionalism considers the role of feminist manifestos in global constitutionalism. It interrogates the role of feminist manifestos in bringing about legal and political reform, their role as historical texts and sources of global constitutionalization, and their limitations as tools that are potentially both exclusionary and de-political. In their article, Ruth Houghton and Aoife O'Donoghue outline a role for feminist manifestos within feminist approaches to constituent power. Sheri Labenski uncovers from the archives the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom manifesto from 1924 and the outline for a 'New International Order'. Gina Heathcote and Lucia Kula centre Lusophone African feminist action in Luanda, Angola, to problematize an approach to feminist manifestos that reiterates dominant feminisms, and instead argue for active silence by those more dominant feminist voices. In her conclusion to the special issue, Emily Jones uses posthuman feminism to interrogate and critique the claim of universality in global constitutionalism. Across this special issue, key themes emerge: the potential of inclusion and exclusion, and the role of manifesto as a method in knowledge production.
Author(s): Houghton R, O'Donoghue A
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Global Constitutionalism
Year: 2023
Volume: 12
Issue: 3
Pages: 403-411
Print publication date: 01/11/2023
Online publication date: 25/08/2023
Acceptance date: 02/04/2018
Date deposited: 28/09/2023
ISSN (print): 2045-3817
ISSN (electronic): 2045-3825
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
URL: https://doi.org/10.1017/S2045381723000217
DOI: 10.1017/S2045381723000217
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