International Dimensions of Women's Suffrage: ‘at the crossroads of several interlocking identities ’[1]

Piecing together suffrage internationalism: Place, space, and connected histories of Australasian women's activism

“…Yet, suffrage fits uneasily here. Unlike such “indissolubly transnational” issues, the fight for political citizenship was, according to Hannam (), better understood as a series of battles fought in specific colonial or national contexts (Tyrrell, , p. 75). Still, as Kathryn Gleadle and Zöe Thomas () observe, recent scholarship has emphasised the movement's international character, bringing into focus “the diverse conversations with which British [and American] campaigners” engaged likeminded women across the world (p. 2; Delap, ; Fletcher, Levine, & Nym Mayhall, ; Sneider, , ).…”

“…With few exceptions, the spectres of the British and American suffrage campaigns still overshadow the experiences of internationally minded suffragists elsewhere in the world (Edwards & Roces, ; Evans, ; Mukherjee, ; Sulkunen, ). Notwithstanding decades of reminders that more might be done to expand its remit, and however “diverse” the conversations started by Anglo‐American activists at the fin‐de‐siècle may have been, suffrage scholarship has yet to fully enact its transnational ideals (Bader‐Zaar, ; Daley & Nolan, ; Hannam, ).…”

“…Amid a boom in scholarship on feminist print culture, welcome attention is also being paid to the circulation of ideas—rather than just analysing texts for their ideological content—across the extensive global publishing and reading networks that linked suffrage‐era feminists (Stevenson, ; ). Above all, Australasian historians have lavished attention on the “suffrage diaspora,” documenting the efforts of seasoned activists who travelled to “teach feminists in the Imperial ‘heartland’” in the 1910s (Hannam, , p. 554; Caine, ; Millar, ; Nicholls, ; Oldfield, ; Taylor, ; Trethewey & Whitehead, ; Wainwright, ). While research exploring these few women's privileged status in pre‐war Britain is valuable, it seems clear that there is a problem of periodisation.…”