In “Area Studies, Transnationalism, and the Feminist Production of Knowledge,” Ella exhorts us to “reimagine the study of regions and cultures in a way that transcends the conceptual border inherent in the cartography of the cold war” (1271). What is implied here is that the West (U.S., Europe) still perceives culture in terms of imagined “areas” which were mapped strategically during the war (think “Middle East,” for instance), and that what ended up happening because of this was that knowledge about these arbitrarily-defined, and very-much imagined areas, was accumulated without regard for cultural differences.

Here, let me literally drive the point home: imagine that the United States was studied by others with the intention of establishing their superiority over Americans (remember, this all started because of wars). Now imagine that they chose the South as the dumping ground of all things American. Soon, people would think that all Americans are predominantly rural, disproportionately poor, and dim-witted (these stereotypes are all intentional). As you can see, the knowledge that begins to be produced about this “American region” is far from the reality. It does not even begin to encompass the social, economic, gender-based, racial, or geographical complexities that exist in the United States. Only by taking a look beyond these maps which were created to assert superiority may others then start seeing these complexities.

This becomes crucial in a world like ours, which is now becoming more interconnected by mass media, and where we are constantly bombarded with images, sounds, and goods from all over. Faced with all this information, we need to be able to look beyond these outdated maps which validity rests on the stating that someone else is inferior, such as the term “third world,” and take a look at how we are interacting and perceiving each other through these transnational (across borders) interactions which are occurring.

This inexorably makes me think Uma Nayaran’s article, “Cross-Cultural Connections, Border-Crossings, and ‘Death by Culture’” in which she compares dowry murders in India and domestic violence in the United States. As she contends with the topic, Nayaran cites an anecdote from Madhu Kishwar in which she tells how she was asked by western feminists if they had battered-women’s homes in India, and that by asking this it was assumed that not having it would constitute a lower stage of development. Nayaran argues that in the Indian context, organizing around issues such as shelters for battered women requires a certain set of conditions which are not available in the country; but that, on the other hand, women in India do have the resources to publicize cases of dowry-murders and hold public demonstrations and protests, which led to the boycotting of marriages where dowry was involved. In short, the conditions of both places (India and the U.S.) dictated what type of actions were taken to lessen aggression toward women. (In the case of the U.S., murder is not as common when it comes to domestic violence; therefore, advocating for shelter for those affected becomes the more logical course of action.)

I became curious about the dowry-murders, and when I looked it up on Google, one of the first articles that the search showed me was titled “India ‘Dowry Deaths’ Still Rising Despite Modernization.” The interesting thing about this article was that it correlated modernity with having obtained independence (“Despite…strides in modernization since India’s 1947 independence…”); that is, it assumes, as Ong states in his book, Flexible Citizenship, that modernity is the process in which “the rest of the world will eventually be assimilated to an internationalized modernity originating in and determined by the West” (53). Implied in the title of that article is the judgment that India, although striving to the like the western countries (does it?), is still located at a lower stage of development than those countries which it seeks to emulate by becoming “modern.” The author clearly has a very western-centered idea of what modernity is. Yet is it important to mention that, as Ong reminds us, modernity “is a matter of signification” (53), and that, at the end of the day, it really has to do with whom controls that which is signified as “modern.” The need, then, to think in terms of difference, not to ascertain superiority, but as a way to reach an understanding of those with whom we come into contact becomes paramount in this day and age.