Karabuıdun

C h a n d r a Ta l p a d e M o h a n t y

“Under Western Eyes” Revisited: Feminist Solidarity through Anticapitalist Struggles

I

at the urging of a number of friends and with some trepidation, revisiting the themes and arguments of an essay written some sixteen years ago. This is a difficult essay to write, and I undertake it hesitantly and with humility—yet feeling that I must do so to take fuller responsibility for my ideas, and perhaps to explain whatever influence they have had on debates in feminist theory.
“Under Western Eyes” (1986) was not only my very first “feminist studies” publication; it remains the one that marks my presence in the international feminist community.1 I had barely completed my Ph.D. when I wrote this essay; I am now a professor of women’s studies. The “under” of Western eyes is now much more an “inside” in terms of my own location in the U.S. academy.2 The site from which I wrote the essay consisted of a very vibrant, transnational women’s movement, while the site I write from today is quite different. With the increasing privatization and corporatization write this essay

Copyright Duke University Press, 2003. Excerpted from Chandra Talpade Mohanty’s forthcoming book, Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity.
Reprinted with permission.
This essay owes much to many years of conversation and collaboration with Zillah
Eisenstein, Satya Mohanty, Jacqui Alexander, Lisa Lowe, Margo Okazawa-Rey, Beverly
Guy-Sheftall, and Susan Sanchez-Casal. Thanks to Zillah, Satya, and Susan for their thoughtful responses to early drafts of this essay. Many thanks also to the generous feedback and critical engagement of students and faculty at the U.S. colleges and schools where I have presented these ideas.
1
“Under Western Eyes” has enjoyed a remarkable life, being reprinted almost every year since 1986 when it first appeared in the left journal Boundary 2 (1986). The essay has been translated into

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