CEU eTD Collection (2013); Koshulap, Iryna: Women, Nation, and the Generation Gap: Diasporic Activism of the Ukrainian National Women's League of America in the post-Cold War Era

CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2013
Author Koshulap, Iryna
Title Women, Nation, and the Generation Gap: Diasporic Activism of the Ukrainian National Women's League of America in the post-Cold War Era
Summary The present study examines a co-formative relationship between the diasporic and women’s activism of the Ukrainian National Women’s League of America at the time of Ukraine’s independence. Founded in 1925, this voluntary-based non-profit organization of Ukrainian migrant women and women of Ukrainian descent has carried out philanthropic, educational, and cultural activities along with political protests and lobbying, taking a recognized place among organizations of the Ukrainian diaspora in the United States. Having been a women’s organization in the Ukrainian diaspora and an ethnic organization in American and international women’s movements from its inception, the UNWLA often considered its participation in international women’s forums instrumental in promoting the cause of Ukraine’s sovereignty. Instead of withdrawing from this arena in the early years of Ukraine’s independence, however, the UNWLA started to adopt the women’s rights and equality discourses for generating relations with the state and non-state actors in Ukraine and for conceptualizing a vision for the organization’s future. Drawing on fieldwork findings from the New York City branches of the organization, I argue that the current shift in the UNWLA’s relation to women’s rights movement has been triggered not only by the changes in the political status of their homeland, but also by the generational shift in the UNWLA membership as well as by the growing currency of women’s rights discourses in the international politics.
Supervisor Cerwonka, Allaine
Department Gender Studies PhD
Full texthttps://www.etd.ceu.edu/2013/koshulap_iryna.pdf

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