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Reconceptualizing

CHAPTER TEN Representation and
••••••••
Identity

Issues of transculturalism

and transnationalism

in the intersection of

feminism and cultural

sociology

Ann Brooks

Introduction

Issues of representation and the construction of identity can be seen as organizing
principles for exploring intersecting debates in the area of feminism, sociology and
cultural studies. Many feminists have made an intellectual shift from the disciplinary
constraints of sociology to the unapologetically interdisciplinary terrain of cultural
studies. The interdisciplinary matrix of cultural studies has provided a framework
within which feminist, postmodernist and postcolonial theoretical debates have
coalesced. The trandisciplinary context of cultural studies incorporating sociology,
critical ethnography, film, literature and cultural politics has provided a dynamic,
intellectual nexus for those working at the interface of feminism, postmodernism
and postcolonialism. It is maintained in this chapter that whereas the interdiscipli-
nary nexus of cultural studies has always been characterized by a ‘desire to transgress
established boundaries’ (Stratton and Ang, 1996), the intersection of feminism and
cultural studies has become increasingly significant for the transcultural and transna-
tional conceptualization of debates on representation and identity. This chapter
examines intersecting debates in the area of feminism and cultural studies and

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