Transnational Belonging and Female Agency in the Arts

Transnational Belonging and Female Agency in the Arts explores the politics of space through womxn's artistic practices, prioritizing solidarity and collaboration across borders. It considers belonging as a manifestation of processes of becoming that traverse borders and generate new spaces and forms of difference. The book aims to catalyze mutual social relations founded on responsibility and response-ability to each other, activating concerns around belonging at a time of intensified divisions.

Format: Hardback
Length: 304 pages
Publication date: 17 November 2022
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Transnational Belonging and Female Agency in the Arts is a groundbreaking exploration of the politics of space expressed through womxn's artistic practices, which prioritize solidarity and collaboration across borders, envisioning attentive geographies of difference. It delves into the concept of belonging as a manifestation of processes of becoming that transcend borders, generating new spaces and forms of difference. By adopting a transnational framework, the book aims to catalyze mutual social relations built upon responsibility and response-ability to each other.

At a time when divisions, partitioning global narratives, unequal trajectories, and increasing violence against the bodies of the most vulnerable are prevalent, largely rooted in Eurocentric paradigms of political, economic, and cultural superiority, the transnational framework becomes particularly relevant. The contributors engage in a conversation that signals transversal thinking and artmaking to articulate and activate 'in-between spaces.' This is to welcome co-affective models of belonging that question versatile embodiments of subjectivity as both agentic and interrelational.

Organized around the triangulation of modes of belonging: spatial, affective, and collective, overlain by a transnational lens that acknowledges non-hierarchical, local, and socially relevant genealogies against universalizing politics of globalization, these essays consider afresh ways in which female agency disrupts borders and activates concerns around different forms of belonging, citizenship, and transnationalisms.

The book's cover image, credited to Keren Anavy, Garden of Living Images (2018), captures a general installation view (detail). Courtesy of the artist and Wave Hill. Photographer: Stefan Hagen, adds an artistic touch to the overall presentation.

In conclusion, Transnational Belonging and Female Agency in the Arts is a vital contribution to the field of art and cultural studies. It offers a rich and nuanced understanding of the complexities of transnational belonging, female agency, and the politics of space. Through its interdisciplinary approach, the book encourages us to reimagine our relationships with each other and the world, fostering a sense of responsibility, response-ability, and solidarity across borders.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781501358753