1984
Bangalore, India
In August 1984, feminists from across the global South gather in Bangalore, India, to prepare for the UN Third World Conference on Women in Nairobi (1985). Confronting a global context of mounting debt, food, and fuel crises, structural adjustment programs, rising fundamentalisms, nuclear testing, and militarisation, they recognise shared experiences of oppression and economic injustice. This gathering marks the birth of DAWN (Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era), a collective that unites Southern feminist critiques of capitalism, imperialism, and development orthodoxy while opposing unequal gender systems and gender injustice.
Many of DAWN’s founding members (the first generation of DAWNees) had long been engaged in feminist analysis and organising—critiquing dominant development paradigms, resisting nuclear testing and authoritarian rule, and advancing women’s rights, including reproductive health and rights.
Building on this encounter, DAWN produces its first analysis, Development, Crises and Alternative Visions: Third World Women’s Perspectives, situating feminist struggles within the broader histories of colonialism and the global South’s place in the international development agenda.
