Challenges and pitfalls of feminist sisterhood in the aftermath of the cold war: The case of the network of east-west women

Abstract

Established in the aftermath of the Cold War and animated by US-based scholars and activists experienced in the second wave of women's liberation movements, the Network of East-West Women (NEWW) has received little attention from scholars. This transnational and transregional group played an instrumental role in triggering and structuring the circulation of information, contacts, and academic and activist publications dedicated to women in Central and Eastern Europe, and in conceptualizing new gender politics in that region after the end of the socialist regimes. Building on original empirical evidence (archive work and interviews), this article considers NEWW's founding and its steps in establishing operations “beyond borders” in the 1990s-a time of professionalizing and globalizing women's rights politics when transnational feminist activism was faced with both new challenges and potentialities.