Reflection 1

Please number your answers, and write a well-written paragraph to respond to each question in the prompt. I expect that it will take you around 400 words to thoroughly answer all questions. Submit your reflection as a Word document or PDF.

1. How do this week’s texts relate to Narayan’s critique of the “package picture” of cultures? Mention at least three texts (in addition to Narayan) and explain how they connect.


2. Look for an example of the kind of reductive thinking that Attiah critiques. First, search for news articles that discuss a social-justice issue of your choice in a country in the Global South (the rest of the world besides the US, Canada, European countries, Russian, Australia, and New Zealand, which are sometimes). If you need ideas for topics, you can look up child marriage, honor killings, female genital mutilation/cutting, or femicide. After you choose an article that you believe shows reductive thinking, think about the perspective the news article is told from and the audience it’s geared to, and the impact of the author’s perspective and audience. Think about how the story might be told differently if it were told by someone else or geared toward a different audience. Think about what transnational feminist solidarity without pity or condescension would look like for this issue. Then answer the following question: what is your news article about, and how does it demonstrate reductive thinking or “single stories” about a country or group of people? Explain how the article you chose relates to Attiah’s article. Please include a link to the article you chose.


3. For the assigned texts that you have not yet discussed in detail in your answers to other questions, what stood out to you most, and how did you see these texts connecting to the rest of the week’s materials?

Assigned Texts:

• “On Transnational Feminist Solidarity” (Links to an external site.) by Hadeel Abdelhy


• “Undoing the ‘Package Picture’ of Culture” (Links to an external site.) by Uma Narayan (read slowly)


• “‘African’ Drumming, the Homogenisation of a Continent” (Links to an external site.) by Nathan Holder


• “I’ve Seen First-Hand the Toxic Racism in International Women’s Rights Groups” (Links to an external site.) by Lori Adelman


• “How Western Media Would Cover Minneapolis if it Happened in Another Country” (Links to an external site.) by Karen Attiah (Attiah PDF) (Links to an external site.)


• “Hyphen-Nation” (Links to an external site.) (watch all nine stories 1–2 minute stories)


• “Gate 4-A” (Links to an external site.) by Naomi Shihab Nye


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