Paola Bacchetta

Professor of Gender and Women's Studies
Office: 626 Social Sciences Building
Research AreasBioPublications
Research Areas
 
Bio

Paola Bacchetta is Professor of Gender & Women’s Studies at University of California, Berkeley. She is also Co-chair of the Political Conflict, Gender and People’s Rights Project based at Center for Race and Gender at University of California, Berkeley. She is on the Executive Committee of the California-wide Center for New Racial Studies and previously served as Coordinator of the Gender Consortium at Berkeley. Bacchetta is the former Director (2006-2010) and current Advisory Board Chair of the Beatrice Bain Research Group at Berkeley. Bacchetta is an Advisory Board member of University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Race and Gender, and Center for Right-Wing Studies. Besides Gender and Women’s Studies, Bacchetta is a faculty member at University of California’s Center for South Asia Studies; Center for Middle Eastern Studies; Center for the Study of Sexual Cultures; and Graduate Group in Dance, Theater and Performance Studies.

Bacchetta’s scholarly interests include: political conflict; transnational feminist and queer theory; decolonial and postcolonial theory; queer of color theory; multiplicities (intersectionality, assemblages, articulational theorizations, co-formations and co-productions); epistemologies of the south; social and critical theory; and theories of spatialities. She has published on thematics such as: political and religious conflict; right-wing movements; liberation-oriented movements, insurgencies, and artistic expressions by feminist and queer of color, decolonial and postcolonial subjects and movements; and co-motion (alliances, coalitions, convergences, solidarities). Her methods of specialization are: discourse analysis, and ethnography and participant-observation. Her geographical areas of concentration are France, India, U.S., and more recently Italy.

Bacchetta holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from The Sorbonne in Paris, with highest honors. Bacchetta’s publications include: sole authored books: Gender in the Hindu Nation: RSS Women as Ideologues. New Delhi: Women Unlimited, 2004; La construction des identités dans les discours nationalistes hindous : le Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh et la Rashtra Sevika Samiti (1939-1992). [The Construction of Identities in Hindu Nationalist Discourse (1939-1992): The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Rashtra Sevika Samiti]. 2 vols. Micro-fiche. (dissertation) Lille, France: A.N.R.T, Université de Lille III, 1996; co-edited books: Trans-Q Fem: Elementi per una critica femminista queer e transnazionale. (Trans-Q Fem: Elements for a Queer Transnational Feminist Critique. Co-edited by Paola Bacchetta and Laura Fantone. Verona: Ombre Corte, 2015); Textes du Mouvement Lesbien en France, 1970-2000. (Texts from the French Lesbian Movement, 1970-2000). Co-editor with Claudie Lesselier. (Web anthology of primary texts of lesbian social movements in France 1970 to 2000), 2011. Accessible at: http://www.coordinationlesbienne.org/spip.php?article174, Also: on CD at Archives Recherches Cultures Lesbiennes (ARCL), Maison des Femmes, 163 rue de Charenton, 75012 Paris, France.; Right-Wing Women: From Conservatives to Extremists around the World. Contributing co-editor with Margaret Power. New York: Routledge, 2002; co-contributed monograph: Conflicted Democracies and Gendered Violence: The Right to Heal; Internal Conflict and Social Upheaval in India (ACRes-CSSL, University of California, Berkeley, 2015; Zubaan, U. Chicago distribution, 2016); and co-edited journal issues: Théories Décoloniales Féministes et Queers: Interventions Ch/Xicanas et Latinas Etatsuniennes. Special issue co-edited with Jules Falquet and Norma Alarcón. Cahiers du CEDREF. (Summer), 2012; Gender-Sexuality-State-Nation: Transnational Feminist Analysis, special issue, co- edited with Jyoti Puri, and Hyun Sook Kim. Gender and Society 19 (April), 2005; and over forty academic articles and book chapters.

For more information please see: http://berkeley.academia.edu/PaolaBacchetta

Publications


 



 
Gender in the Hindu Nation

 
RSS Women as Ideologues

 
Paola Bacchetta

 
Kali/Women Unlimited, 2004

 

The three essays in this volume offer a detailed account of women who are active in the Rashtriya Sevika Samiti. It analyses differences in their, and the RSS’s articulation of the place that women occupy in their ideology, in symbolic space, and in a Hindu Rashtra. A theoretically sophisticated and empirically rich contribution to an analysis of the nation and the RSS.

 

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Right Wing Women

 
From Conservatives to Extremists Around the World

 
Paola Bacchetta

 
Margaret Power

 
Routledge, 2002

 

An oft-neglected subject, right-wing women are an important component in understanding the many racist, fascist, and anti-feminist movements of the 20th century. Providing original research on an array of right-wing groups around the world, the contributors paint a disturbing and complicated portrait of the women involved in these movements.

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BOOKS, SOLE AUTHOR

 

Gender in the Hindu Nation: RSS Women as Ideologues. New Delhi: Women Unlimited, 2004.

 

La construction des identités dans les discours nationalistes hindous : le Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh et la Rashtra Sevika Samiti (1939-1992). [The Construction of Identities in Hindu Nationalist Discourse (1939-1992): The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Rashtra Sevika Samiti]. 2 vols. Micro-fiche. (dissertation) Lille, France: A.N.R.T, Université de Lille III, 1996.

 

BOOKS, CO-EDITED 

 

Femminismi Queer Postcoloniali: critiche transnazionali all’omofobia, all’islamofobia e all’omonazionalismo. Contributing co-editor, with Laura Fantone. Verona, Italy: Ombre Corte, 2015.

 

Textes du Mouvement Lesbien en France, 1970-2000. (Texts from the French Lesbian Movement, 1970-2000). Contributing co-editor with Claudie Lesselier. 2011.  Online at: http://www.coordinationlesbienne.org/spip.php?article174

 

Also: on CD at Archives Recherches Cultures Lesbiennes (ARCL), Maison des Femmes, 163 rue de Charenton, 75012 Paris, France.

 

Right-Wing Women: From Conservatives to Extremists around the World. Contributing co-editor with Margaret Power. New York: Routledge, 2002.

 

PEER REVIEWED JOURNAL ISSUES CO-EDITED 

 

Théories Décoloniales Féministes et Queers: Interventions Ch/Xicanas et Latinas Etatsuniennes. (Decolonial Feminist and Queer Theories: Ch/Xicana and U.S. Latina Interventions). Co-edited with Jules Falquet and Norma Alarcón. Cahiers du CEDREF. 18 (2011). Online at: http://cedref.revues.org/

 

Gender-Sexuality-State-Nation: Transnational Feminist Analysis. Special issue, co-edited with Jyoti Puri, and Hyun Sook Kim. Gender and Society 19, 2 (2005).

 

Feminist Studies. Issue co-edited with Sandra Gunning, 30 (2004).

 

PEER REVIEWED JOURNAL ARTICLES 

 

“Queerphilic Xenophobia: Deadly Effects of Dominant Constructions of a Decolonial Muslim Woman Leader in France.” Islamophobia Studies Journal. Special issue co-edited with Rabab Abdulhadi on Islamophobia: Gender, Sexuality and Racism. (Forthcoming).

 

“Queer of Color Formations and Translocal Spaces in Europe.” With Jin Haritaworn and Fatima El-Tayeb. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space. Vol. 33 (5), 769-778. (October 2015).

 

“Décoloniser le Féminisme: Intersectionnalités, Assemblages, Co-Formations, Co-Productions” (Decolonizing Feminism: Intersectionalities, Assemblages, Co-Formations, Co-Productions). Cahiers du CEDREF. Special Issue on Intersectionalities and Colonialism. (January 2015).

 

“When the (Hindu) Nation Exiles Its Queers.” Jura Gentium: Rivista di filosofia del diritto internazionale e della politica globale. Rubric: Law and Politics in Post-Colonial Asia. Tra India e Occidente (a cura di Lisa Caputo). University of Florence. (2013). Online at: http://www.juragentium.org/topics/rol/en/bacchetta.pdf

 

“Théories Décoloniales Féministes et Queers: Interventions Ch/Xicanas et Latinas Etatsuniennes: Introduction.” (Decolonial Feminist and Queer Theories: Ch/Xicana and U.S. Latina Interventions: Introduction). Co-authored with Jules Falquet and Norma Alarcón. Cahiers du CEDREF 18 (2011): 7-40.

 

“Queer et xénophobie dans le nationalisme hindou postcolonial.” Cahiers du Genre 50 (2011): 65-89.

 

“The (Failed) Production of Hindu Nationalized Space in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.” Gender, Place and Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography 17, 5 (2010): 551-572.

 

“Decolonial Praxis: Enabling Intranational and Transnational Queer Coalition Building. Paola Bacchetta Interviewed by Marcelle Maese-Cohen. » Qui Parle : Critical Humanities and Social Science 18, 2 (2010) : 147-192. Online at : http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/qui_parle/toc/qui.18.2.html

 

« Co-Formations : Sur les spatialités de résistance de lesbiennes ‘of color’ en France. » Genre, Sexualité et Société 1, 1 (2009). Online at : http://gss.revues.org

 

« A Transnational Conversation on French Colonialism, Immigration, Violence and Sovereignty. » With Miriam Ticktin and Ruth Marshall. Scholar and Feminist (2008). Online at : http://www.barnard.edu/sfonline.htm

 

« Quand des mouvements lesbiens à Delhi questionnent les ‘Théories féministes transnationales’. » Paris: Cahiers du CEDREF (2006) :173-204. Online at http://cedref.revues.org/425

 

“Re-Scaling Trans/national 'Queerdom': 1980s Lesbian and ‘Lesbian’ Identitary Positionalities in Delhi.” Special Issue: Queer Patriarchies, Queer Racisms, International. Antipode 34 (2002): 947-973.

 

“Transnational Feminist Practices against War.” With Tina Campt, Inderpal Grewal, Caren Kaplan, Minoo Moallem, Jennifer Terry. Published in the following refereed journals: Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism 2, 2 (2002): 302-308; Revista Estudos Feministas 9 (Brazil), 2 (2002): 353-359; Cyberzone 15 (Palermo, Italy) (2002):108-116;     Sisyphe (Canada) (2002). Reprinted in the following books: In September 11, 2001: Feminist Perspectives, edited by Susan Hawthorne and Bronwyn Winter. Melbourne, Australia: Spinifex, 2001; In Terror, Counter-Terror: Women Speak Out, Edited by Ammu Joseph and Kalpana Sharma. New Delhi: Kali for Women, 2003; In The W. Effect, edited by Laura Flanders. New York: Feminist Press, 2004.

 

“Re-interrogating Partition: Voices of Women/Children/ Dalits in the Partition of India and Pakistan.” Feminist Studies 26, 2 (2000): 567-586.

 

“Sacred Space in Religious-Political Conflict in India: The Babri Masjid Affair, in Space and Ethnic Conflict.” Growth and Change 31 (2000): 255-284.

 

“Militant Hindu Nationalist Women Re-Imagine Themselves: Notes on Mechanisms of Expansion/ Adjustment.” Journal of Women's History 10 (1999): 125-147.

 

“When the (Hindu) Nation Exiles its Queers.” Social Text 61 (1999): 141-166.

 

“All Our Goddesses Are Armed: Religion, Resistance, and Revenge in the Life of a Militant Hindu Nationalist Woman.” Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars 25 (1993): 38-51.

 

“Muslim Women in the RSS Discourse: Eroticizing Relations of Domination/ Subordination.” Feminist Journal of Association for Asian Studies 8, 3-4 (1993): 14-20.

 

“La Polygamie en Occident Chrétien” Broullion de Culture (Sorbonne, Paris) 3 (1988): 22-25.

 

PEER REVIEWED AND INVITED BOOK CHAPTERS/ESSAYS 

 

“Avoiding Deadly Encounters: Reflections on Decolonial Feminist and Queer of Color Solidarities.” In Decolonizing Sexualities: Transnational Perspectives, Critical Interventions, coedited by Sandeep Bakshi, Suhraiya  Jivraj and Silvia Posocco. Britain: CounterPress, 2015.

 

“Queer People of Color and Urban Space in France, Germany and The Netherlands” (with Fatima El Tayeb and Jin Haritaworn). In Decolonize the City, edited by Noa Ha, Veronika Zablotsky and Mahdis Azarmandi. Berlin, Germany: Unrast, 2015.

 

“L’épistemologie décoloniale queer d’Anzaldúa et lesbiennes de couleur en France.” In Colonialité du pouvoir, multiculturalisme et genre, edited by Anouk Guiné. Paris, France: IDEAL. (In press. Forthcoming  2016).

 

“Décoloniser les alliances: Hindous, musulmans, lesbiennes et autres contre le nationalisme hindou en inde.” In Regards croisés de femmes en lutte: Chemins vers un féminisme sans frontières, edited by Collectif féministe pour l’égalité, 21-30.  Paris: CICP, 2014.

 

“Queer Formations in (Hindu) Nationalism.” In Sexuality Studies, edited by Sanjay Srivasta, 121-140. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2013.

 

“There Are Many Transatlantics: Homonationalism, Homotransnationalism and Feminist-Queer-Trans of Color Theories and Practices.” With Jin Haritaworn. In Transatlantic Conversations, edited by Kathy Davis and Mary Evans, 127-144. U.K: Ashgate, 2011.

 

“Transnational Borderlands. Gloria Anzaldúa’s Epistemologies of Resistance and Lesbians ‘of Color’ in Paris.” In El Mundo Zurdo: Selected Works from the Society for the Study of Gloria Anzaldúa 2007 to 2009, edited by Norma Cantu, Christina L. Gutierrez, Norma Alarcón and Rita E. Urquijo-Ruiz, 109-128. San Francisco: Aunt Lute, 2010.

 

“Réflexions sur les alliances féministes transnationales.” In Le sexe de la mondialisation, edited by Jules Falquet, Helena Hirata, Danièle Kergoat, Brahim Labari, Nicky Le Feuvre and Fatou Sow, 259-274. Paris, France: Presses de Sciences Politiques, 2010.

 

« Co-Formações /Co-Produções: Considerações sobre Poder, Sujeitos Subalternos, Movimentos Sociais e Resistência. » In Leituras de Resistência: Corpo, Violência e Poder, edited by Carmen Susana Tornquist, Claire Castilhos Coelho, Mara Coelho de Souza Lago and Teresa Kleba Lisboa, 49-74. Florianópolis, Brazil: l'Editora Mulheres, 2009.

 

“Dyketactics! Notes Towards an Un-silencing.” In Smash the Church, Smash the State: The             Early Years of Gay Liberation, edited by Tommi Avicolli Mecca, 218-231. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2009.

 

“Transnational Borderlands. Gloria Anzaldúa’s Epistemologies of Resistance and Lesbians ‘of Color’ in France.” In Prietas y Gueras: Celebrating Twenty Years of Borderlands/La Frontera, edited by Norma Cantu and Christina L. Gutierrez, 77-92. San Antonio: Adelante, 2009.

 

“Circulations: Thinking with Gloria Anzaldúa in Paris.” In Gloria Anzaldúa, 20th Anniversary Edition of Borderlands/La Frontera, 4-6. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 2007.

 

“Re-Scaling ‘Transnational Queer’: Lesbians in Delhi in the 1980s.” In Sexualities, edited by Nivedita Menon, 103-127. New Delhi: Women Unlimited, 2007; also London: Zed Books, 2007.

 

“Gendered Fractures in Hindu Nationalism: On the Subject-Members of the Rashtra Sevika Samiti.” In The Oxford IndiaHinduism: A Reader, edited by Vasudha Dalmia and Heinrich von Stietencron, 373-395. London and Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2006.

 

“Hindu Nationalist Women as Ideologues.” In The Sangh Parivar: A Reader, edited by Christophe Jaffrelot. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005.

 

“Hindu Nationalist Women Imagine Spatialities/Imagine Themselves: Reflections on Gender-Supplemental-Agency.” In Right-Wing Women across the Globe, edited by Paola Bacchetta and Margaret Power, 43-56. New York: Routledge, 2002.

 

“Introduction.” Co-authored with Margaret Power. In Right-Wing Women across the Globe, edited by Paola Bacchetta and Margaret Power, 1-15. New York: Routledge, 2002.

 

“Extra-Ordinary Alliances: Women Unite against Religious-Political Conflict in India.” In Feminism and Anti-Racism: International Struggles, edited by Kathleen Blee and France Winddance Twine, 220-249. New York: New York University Press, 2002.

 

“Hindu Nationalist Women: On the Use of the Feminine Symbolic to (Temporarily) Displace Male Authority.” In Jewels of Authority: Women and Textual Tradition in Hindu India, edited by Laurie Patton, 157-176. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

 

“Hindu Nationalist Women as Ideologists: Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Rashtra Sevika Samiti, and their Respective Projects for a Hindu Nation.” In Embodied Violence: Communalizing Women's Sexuality in South Asia, edited by Kumari Jayawardena and Malathi de Alwis, 126-167. New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1996. Also published by London: Sage Publications, 1996.

 

“All Our Goddesses Are Armed: Religion, Resistance and Revenge in the Life of a Militant Hindu Nationalist Woman.” In Against All Odds: Essays on Women, Religion and Development from India and Pakistan, edited by Kamla Bhasin, Nighat Khan, and Ritu Menon, 133-156. New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1994.

 

“Communal Property/Sexual Property: On Representations of Muslim Women in a Hindu Nationalist Discourse.” In Forging Identities: Gender, Communities and Nations, edited by Zoya Hasan, 188-225. New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1994. Also published by Boulder: Westview Press, 1994.

 

REVIEW ESSAYS 

 

Review of Gender Ironies of Nationalism, edited by Tamar Mayer. Ecumene (2001): 4.

 

Review of Appropriating Gender. Women's Activism and Politicized Religion in South Asia, edited by Amrita Basu and Patricia Jeffery. Journal of Asian Studies (Winter 1999): 1167-1168.

 

Review of Politique et religion dans l'Asie du Sud contemporaine, edited by Gérard Heuzé and Monique Selim. Contributions to Indian Sociology (Spring 1999): 568.

 

Review of La Divinité Conquise: Carrière d'une Sainte, by Catherine Clémentin Ojha. In Contributions to Indian Sociology 26, 2 (1992): 328.

 

ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL COMMUNITY TRANSLATIONS 

 

French to English 

 

“Key Concepts For Decolonialism in France” by Houria Bouteldja. For Critical Ethnic Studies Journal. Inaugural issue. (2015).

 

“We Are All Veiled Women.” In Huffington Post. (2013).

 

“Far-Right Women in France: The Case of the National Front” by Claudie Lesselier. In Right-Wing Women: From Conservatives to Extremists around the World, edited by Paola Bacchetta and Margaret Power, 43-56. New York: Routledge, 2002.

 

English to French 

 

“La conciencia de la mestiza: Vers une nouvelle conscience” by Gloria Anzaldua. (La Conciencia de la Mestiza: Towards a New Consciousness). Translated with Jules Falquet. Cahiers du CEDREF 18 (2011).

 

“Les sujets théoriques de This Bridge Called My Back” by Norma Alarcon. (The Theoretical Subjects of ‘This Bridge Called My Back’). Translated with Jules Falquet. Cahiers du CEDREF 18 (2011).

 

“La théorie et la méthod de la conscience oppositionnelles dans le monde postmoderne” by Chela Sandoval. (The Theory and Method of Oppositional Consciousness in the Postmodern World).Translated with Jules Falquet. Cahiers du CEDREF 18 (2011).

 

“Ésprit joueur, voyage d’un ‘ monde’» à d’autres et perception aimante” by Maria Lugones. (Playfulness, World Travelling and Loving Perception). Translated with Jules Falquet. Cahiers du CEDREF 18 (2011).

 

”La Guera” by Cherríe L. Moraga. (La Guera). Translated with Diane Koch and Jules Falquet. Cahiers du CEDREF 18 (2011).

 

“Réfugiées d’un monde en feu: Avant-propos à la deuxième édition, 1983” by Cherríe L. Moraga. (Refugees of a World on Fire: Forward to the Second Edition of This Bridge called My Back, 1983). Translated with Diane Koch and Jules Falquet. Cahiers du CEDREF 18 (2011).

 

“Préface à This Bridge Called My Back. Writings of Radical Women of Color, 1981” by Cherríe L. Moraga. (Preface to This Bridge Called My Back. Writings of Radical Women of Color, 1981). Translated with Diane Koch and Jules Falquet. Cahiers du CEDREF 18 (2011).

 

“The Bridge Poem” by Donna Rushin. Translated with Jules Falquet. Cahiers du CEDREF 18 (2011).

 

PUBLICATIONS OTHERWISE DISTRIBUTED 

 

“The (Failed) Production of Hindu Nationalized Space in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.” Gender Place and Culture 17, 5 (2010):  551-572. Distributed by the human rights organization CIFOR on CD-ROM with abstract on its website which averages 1 million hits per year: www.cifor.org/gender/

 

“Sacred Space in Conflict in India: The Babri Masjid Affair.” Growth and Change 31, 2 (2000):  255-284. Distributed by the human rights organization CIFOR on CD-ROM with abstract on its website which averages 1 million hits per year: http://www.cifor.org/gender