MULTICULTURAL POLITICS & WOMEN’S ACTIVISM: WHEN DO RACE AND NATION ENTER WOMEN’S FRAMES? by CHANLEY ELIZABETH RAINEY RICHARD C. FORDING, COMMITTEE CHAIR NICHOLAS KERR DANA PATTON HEATHER MIYANO KOPELSON CHRISTOPHER HALE A DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Political Science in the Graduate School of The University of Alabama TUSCALOOSA, ALABAMA 2016 Copyright Chanley Elizabeth Rainey 2016 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ABSTRACT Women’s advocacy organizations often invoke moral arguments and frame issues in ways that make them legible within discourses on sexuality and race, with significance for struggles over decolonization, national representation, and schism within women’s movements. Postcolonial feminist theories help make sense of women’s activism that engages both racism and women’s rights. They provide a map of the symbolic terrain on which policy debates are fought, enabling us to identify the paths available (as well as closed) to women’s organizations as they negotiate a collective identity for their members, diagnose the problems they want to address, propose solutions, and select a strategy for persuading others to adopt their perspective. With a map like this, we can anticipate the ways in which different women’s organizations, differently positioned in terms of racial or national identity, may diverge, as well as routes to alliance. These are the tasks to which I turn when looking within the case of Trinidad and seeking to explain the different uses to which Afro-Christian, East Indian Hindu and Muslim women put race/nation in their activism. As a paired comparison of women’s activism in Trinidad and Guyana show, however, similar policy questions debated in comparable contexts (decolonizing states with histories of explicitly racial politics) can lead to strikingly different conversations, depending on whether ethno-nationalist frames occupy a central or peripheral position on the national stage. Theories of collective action framing, and the related concepts of state resonance and discursive opportunity structures, point to the role of institutionalized discourses and government priorities in shaping ii the choices activist women make about how to evaluate proposed problems and solutions to gender-based grievances. Process tracing reveals that values and beliefs institutionalized in state policies affect women’s strategic framing by creating discursive political opportunities. Broadly then, the contributions made further develop social movement theory by analyzing the causal mechanisms linking state-based discursive opportunities to the frames constructed by prominent women’s organizations. Because the Trinidadian case involves opportunities created by multicultural policy, the study also provides some insight into the effects of such policies on minority women’s activism in decolonizing, multiethnic societies. iii DEDICATION For all the women in my life who have shared with me, in many different ways, the struggle to discover what “women’s rights” mean to them. And to Ken, for continuing to ask what I’m thinking. iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS FPATT Family Planning Association of Trinidad and Tobago HWO Hindu Women’s Organization of Trinidad and Tobago IWG Indian Women’s Group of Trinidad and Tobago MGYCD Trinidad and Tobago’s Ministry of Gender, Youth, and Child Development MWO Muslim Women’s Organizations (of Trinidad and Tobago) TT Trinidad and Tobago Working Women Working Women for Social Progress of Trinidad and Tobago v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I have received support in too many forms and from too many people to truly acknowledge all of the debts incurred in this brief space. First and foremost, I am eternally grateful to Drs. Simanti Lahiri, Nicholas Kerr, Richard Fording, and Dana Patton for encouraging and enabling me to undertake field research for this project. I would not have been satisfied with my data if it had not included the living voices of activists, yet I would not have thought it feasible to speak with them if these four had not shown me the way. When I did go to Trinidad, Nicholas made sure that I was in the best possible place. The entire Edwards family has my undying gratitude, but Ms. Joslyn Edwards remains unequalled in her hospitality and warmth. Ms. Edwards, her sons—Nystrom and Sebastian—and her neighbor, Kerwyn De La mothe, along with their friends and family all over the island made sure that I was not only made to feel welcome, but was well-fed and well-acquainted with all of the fun and beauty their country has to offer. Ms. Edwards also saved me much sweat and tears by introducing me to the Trinidadian version of taxis and, in cases where public transportation would have been difficult and time-consuming, Kerwyn and Sebastian kindly gave me rides. Innumerable folk in Trinidad were helpful and kind, making my first foray into field research an incredibly affirming experience. Obviously, the representatives of women’s organizations who agreed to meet with me are due tremendous thanks. Their passion and commitment—no matter which side of the debate they fell on—is inspiring, and the insights they provided have made this project much more valuable and rich than it would have been without vi their input. Those I spoke with at the Ministry of Gender, Youth and Child Development, as well as the people from the National Archives who helped me locate government documents and navigate Port of Spain, also did much to facilitate my research. Finally (although I have only scratched the surface), the staff of both the National Library of Trinidad and Tobago and the University of the West Indies’ Library were very generous with their time and resources. There are also many in the Political Science Department who have supported me along the way. Douglas Gibler and Karl DeRouen gave me the opportunity to practice the nitty-gritty work of data collection and historical event reconstruction by employing me in several of their research projects. Simanti Lahiri and Utz McKnight generously opened their bookshelves to me, guiding me to ideas that have shaped this work and will continue to influence my understanding of political and social phenomena. Joseph Smith welcomed me into the Department in the first place, and the courses I took with Emily Ritter and Barbara Chotiner have left an indelible mark on my approach to theory-building. My long-time officemates, Chris Kromphardt and Wes Hutto, provided many entertaining distractions as well as constructive conversation, as did my off-campus study-buddies, Ishita Chowdhury and Gina Miller. Finally, my family has been a steady source of sustenance throughout my work on this project. My parents, my husband, and my sister have been particularly crucial facilitators and cheerleaders. My children have patiently endured many a dazed look and clacking keyboard in lieu of attentive mothering. I hope this project makes them proud. vii CONTENTS ABSTRACT ................................................................................................ ii DEDICATION ........................................................................................... iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ......................................................................v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ......................................................................... vi LIST OF TABLES ..................................................................................... xi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS .................................................................... xii 1. THE PUZZLE OF WOMEN’S DIVERGENT FRAMES .......................1 Collective Action Frames and Discursive Opportunities.............................3 Paired Comparison: Women’s Frames in Trinidad and Guyana .................6 Alternative Explanations ..............................................................................9 Outline of the Dissertation .........................................................................12 2. STATE RESONANCE AND STRATEGIC FRAMING ......................14 Gender, Race, and Nation in Postcolonial Theory .....................................15 Women’s Talk as Strategic Framing..........................................................23 Conclusions ................................................................................................32 3. RESEARCH DESIGN ...........................................................................35 Conceptualizing State-based Opportunities and Women’s Frames ...........36 A Paired Comparison: The Similar Systems of Guyana and Trinidad ......44 Case Selection: Guyana as a Relevant, Negative Case ..............................50 viii Analytic Approach: Measuring Mechanisms, Tracing Process .................53 Casting the Net: Methods of Data Collection ............................................60 Pulling it All Together ...............................................................................65 4. WOMEN’S FRAMES IN TRINIDAD ..................................................66 Gender and Nation in Trinidad ..................................................................72 Cycle of Contention: Debating the Age of Consent to Marriage In Trinidad and Tobago .............................................................................79 Discursive Opportunities and Women’s Frames: The Age of Consent as Ethnic Difference .................................................88 Conclusions ..............................................................................................115