ABOUT
Island feminist perspectives start with the lived experiences, challenges, and opportunities of islanders, recognizing that these are continuously shaped and reshaped by changes in identities, movements, constructs of gender and sexuality, and race, ethnicity and indigeneity, as well as systems of global and local power.
Our website is currently dedicated to convening the virtual speaker series, but we hope it becomes a space for exchange among persons who are thinking about gender and sexualities as they intersect with race, ethnicity, indigeneity, and class on islands. More so, we want the IF Project to be a mode of progressive social change responding to gender and sex bias and discrimination, sexual violence, and homophobia, as well as the gendered impact of climate change and the corporate control of resources, such as tourism and deep sea mining. This will also be a place to support indigenous island communities, as they safe keep their sacred spaces and island ecologies for all islanders. Please feel free to email us with thoughts and comments or if you would like to be part of our developing listserv at contact@islandfeminisms.org
“Island feminisms refers to the intellectual sensibilities of island place and constructs of gender and sexuality as intertwining forces that contour the particular conditions of life – economic, geographical, and ecological – and cultural and political manifestations on islands. Like most feminisms, it is action oriented, in pursuit of just and fair conditions for all beings, but is guided by specific interest in islanders’ local and subaltern strategies that remain resistant to hegemonic discourses and practices of power" (Karides, 2017)
The Island Feminisms (IF) Project is a coordinated effort between Marina Karides and Noralis Rodríguez-Coss.
Island Feminisms (IF) Project Co-organizers
Marina Karides
I currently serve as Chair and Professor of Sociology at the University of Hawai’i at Hilo. I am a child of Greek immigrants born in New York City. My research and teaching interests include intersectionality and globalization/development in island societies, global social movements, and recently, indigenous methodologies. Most of my published research has been conducted in island regions including the Caribbean, Mediterranean, and Pacific. As a scholar activist I participated in global justice activism and collaborated on three books on the World Social Forum. My forthcoming book Sappho’s Legacy? Food and Convivial Economics on a Greek Isle with SUNY Press examines alternative economics as practiced in Greek islands and their intersection with gender, ethnicity, and tourism. Currently, I serve as PI on the NSF ADVANCE funded project “Building Relationships to Increase Diversity and Gender Equity in Hawai’i’s Two-Year College System” where we consider academic employment on islands. I am also working towards my Associate Degree in Hawaiian Studies hula specialization at Hawai’i Community College.
Noralis Rodríguez-Coss
I am a Puerto Rican feminist scholar, activist, and Assistant Professor in the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies at Gonzaga University in Washington, United States. My teaching experience includes lower-level courses such as Gender, Difference & Power and Feminist Activism in Latin America & the Caribbean, as well as upper-level courses such as Transnational Feminisms and Feminist Symposium. I was born and raised in Puerto Rico until I moved to the United States to pursue graduate studies after working for three years in the ADVANCE Program for Institutional Transformation of the National Science Foundation in the University of Puerto Rico at Humacao. My interdisciplinary scholarship focuses on issues concerning gender violence; social constructions of gender and islands; feminist activism and public protests; and global perspectives on gender and transnational feminism. I earned an MA in Women’s Studies from Southern Connecticut State University and a Ph.D. in Feminist Studies from the University of Washington, Seattle.
