UCR CHASS: Women's Studies

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Women in Coalition:

Women in Coalition (WIC) is the "research, policy, and action" wing of the Women's Studies Department at UCR. The faculty affiliated with this center conduct research that involves collaboration with grassroots women's organizations in the United States and in other countries. WIC creates a space where dialogues about women and gender issues occur through the lived worlds of diverse, usually underrepresented communities within the United States and internationally. Following the charge of Third Wave feminist critiques and international women's movements, Women in Coalition is committed to exploring the interlocking forces of class, race, ethnicity, sexualities, and nation that inform and are shaped by women's experiences. WIC opens sorely needed dialogues by bringing academics together with community leaders, activists, and policy makers in the planning and implementation of its various projects. Agendas set by scholars and community organizers create grounds for critical and continuing collaborative work.

Women in Coalition was founded in October 1995 by women faculty from across the disciplines in the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at UCR. As one of the five units operating under the umbrella of the College's Center for Social and Behavioral Sciences, WIC is committed to working across geographical and political as well as academic borderlines in the interest of intellectual and political collaboration and innovation. The Coalition focuses on the disjunction between academic and activist feminisms in the United States and on the globalization and local production of feminist theories and practices.

Women in Coalition's activities include supporting and distributing research by its members, originating research projects, generating intra-system and external funding for research, and convening conferences designed to encourage communication among women who might otherwise be separated by geographical, professional, or disciplinary boundaries. While Women in Coalition is committed to community work and research in the immediate region in southern California, we do so with an allied emphasis on women and gender issues in transnational and international contexts. In an era of increasing globalization, networks of women's organizing in the global South have criticized international development policies, transnational and multinational investment flows, the effects of structural adjustment on poor and working families, human rights abuses, and environmental degradation. The United Nations Conference on Women held in Beijing (1995) is just one example of the powerful solidarity created through international and transnational women's networks. Women's cross-border coalitions have moved toward new ways of thinking, writing, and acting through the terms of globalization.

Women in Coalition offices are located in 2121J Watkins Hall. The current Director, Dr. Piya Chatterjee (Women's Studies), can be reached at piya.chatterjee@ucr.edu. Policy is made by an executive board made up of faculty, graduate students, and staff.

Research Areas:

Women's issues within transnational and trans-cultural contexts in which race, class, ethnicity, and sexuality inflect gender identities.
Feminist theories and research methodologies and their implications for science and technology, including women and natural resource management.
Sexualities, performative bodies, and issues of queer theory.
Women's health policies and international development.
Community activism through internships and fellowships from the region.

Goals:

Facilitating collaborative research projects on women, gender, and sexualities that involve faculty and graduate students.
Linking campus research projects to community concerns.
Sponsoring lectures and programs relevant to the research agendas of faculty and relevant to students' intellectual development and to community concerns.
Serving as a resources center for information and publicity for campus programs related to women, gender, and sexuality in cooperation with relevant student services centers.
Contributing to UCR's regional and national reputation by serving as a model for collaborative research in the region and internationally.

Recent and Ongoing Projects:

The Rural Women's Empowerment Project, headed by History Professor Devra Weber, coordinates the work of researchers and activists concerned with issues facing women farm workers in California and Mexico.
WIC houses UCR's Committee on the Status of Women (CSW), which advises the Chancellor, based on research its members conduct among staff, faculty, and students.
Mixteca and Hmong Women's Conference in the San Joaquin Valley. Professor Devra Weber (UCR-History) and Laura Velasco Ortiz, a Mexican scholar who has worked with Oaxacan women's organizing, helped to organize this coalitional gathering of rural California women. Rockefeller Foundation funding.
First Nations Education and Resource Center, Inc. Dr. Piya Chatterjee is involved in the "women's circle" of the San Bernardino-based indigenous people's research center.
Speaker Series: ongoing sponsorship of talks and workshops that bring academics and grassroots intellectuals into dialogues around women's rights as human rights, economic and political empowerment, and women's leadership in community organizing.
Book Series. Initial contact and proposal has been submitted to the internationally respected Kali for Women Press in New Delhi, India for a series on "Third World Women's Activism".

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	Department Resources
	Women's Studies Department Resources Center for Women in Coalition Solidarity Work