THE CONSTRUCT OF A POSTMODERNIST FEMINIST THEORY FOR CARIBBEAN SOCIAL-SCIENCE RESEARCH

In this paper I construct a Postmodernist Feminist theory in an attempt to contribute to indigenous feminist theory, building on or about women in the Anglophone Caribbean.1 Part I of the paper critiques the Enlightenment perspective. This is challenged as providing an inadequate and irrelevant epistemological and methodological base for feminist theorizing for the Caribbean. This section also presents the main arguments of Postmodernist Feminism. Part II outlines the requirement and assumptions of this theory in the making. It identifies the basis of these assumptions while critiquing Socialist Feminist theorizing as representing both theoretical and empirical contradictions of Caribbean realities. It explores the conclusions of the Women in the Caribbean Project (WICP) as indicating the need for such a theory. These inputs demarcate the parameters of the new construct. The assumptions of the Construct, the inadequacy of existing theoretical frames and the theoretical are contributions of feminist theorists are interwoven to constitute the theoretical base. In Part III the theory is applied to the WICP research to indicate different conclusions. Finally I examine the work and orientation of new Caribbean women's groups whose activities I argue can only be understood from the perspective of challenging the social relations of gender. At this stage the theoretical construct is tentative and exploratory. The certainties are that gender permeates all social interactions and that women and men are equally engendered even though gendered relations operate differently for them.