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[ecrea] CfP: Social Criticism in Women's Movements and (queer)Feminist Public Spheres

Mon Jun 20 12:31:47 GMT 2016



*feministische studien, Call Heft 1/2017: **Social Criticism in Women’s Movements and (queer-)Feminist Public Spheres*

Feminist interventions in social processes of transformation are essential in the fights for emancipation and gender equality. They are informed by feminist social criticism, pointing at many problems in social, cultural, political relations and developments. They stimulate the analysis of social inequality, but also the critique of capitalism, neo-liberalism as well as patriarchalism and heteronormativity (Wischermann 2013: 188).

Up until today, women’s associations and movements, as well as lesbian-feminist movements and queer activists are campaigning for emancipation and gender equality: they are fighting locally, transregionally, transnationally, and in solidarity against the lack of respect and insufficient support, as well as for the protection of human rights of all genders. They protest against inequality between men and women and advocate for participation in decision-making processes on all levels of politics, economy, health, education, environment, and peace-keeping.

During these fights, feminist movements have at the same time appropriated and shaped new symbolic and material (queer-)feminist spaces; changed the limits of what is visible and expressible; and they have found their own cultural forms of expression. This shift of borders coincides with a critique of rationalist conceptions of politics and of objectivist conceptions of knowledge.

The study of women’s movements has shown that media play a central role in feminist counter public spheres. From the pamphlet to twitter, media have been used as powerful tools to make their issues and demands subject of public debate, by not only letting them surface but also publically scandalising them. Inequality and exclusion are thereby uncovered and participation in the hegemonic public sphere is demanded.

Media and other cultural productions like magazines of the feminist movements, zines, and blogs, but also slogans and songs have also been important for networking and developing a collective understanding. They promote a feminist awareness, incite the desire to participate in joint debates and learning processes – even in controversy – and enable empowering experiences in the collective struggle for change.

Thereby, feminist public spheres suggest the expansion of feminist agency, since changing society was and is still related to processes of identity formation. The forms of access and the productive use of media play a role in the stabilization of old and in the establishment of new power relations and hierarchies; this holds true for feminist movements as well, which have been accompanied by multifaceted controversies and debates.

Feminist public spheres have always utilised the entire spectrum of media communication for gaining public access and networking; for example today, the results of the World Women’s Conference 2016 in Nepal are circulated via YouTube and other social media. Communication forms and forums of women’s movements and (queer-)feminist movements have without a doubt multiplied, yet the question remains whether this also goes along with a strengthening of their position.

Feminist movements have always been reflected and represented in hegemonic public spheres and mainstream media; mostly in a way that restricts their outreach and legitimises sanctions against their activists. Resistance against feminist demands is articulated in media that leads to feminists being threatened and villainized. Anti-feminist networks, which today are articulating themselves quite vehemently in many countries, are not a completely new phenomenon but have also been historically powerful, often being supported by conservative women as well. In addition, boundaries are raised between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feminist positions; between feminists, who do get a word in mainstream media and those who have no voice. Demands of feminist movements therefore could be separated from their socially critical foundation and have been used for modernisations in neo-liberal capitalism. This for example holds true for the demands to radically reorganize the spheres both of production and reproduction in the 1970s, which in many ways has contributed to an increase of the number of working women and a greater equality at least in some professions but has not changed the low social status of domestic care work and reproductive work. This is also true for the public debates about sexual violence, which is appropriated to justify racist positions by right-wing, extremist movements in many Western countries. All this raises questions about the possible strategies of feminist movements to resist expropriations, separation, and anti-feminism. And it poses the question how a re-articulation of feminist movements and a loss of collective memory about feminist social criticism and its activists can be prevented.

We hope for responses to this call from authors who study women’s movements, (queer-)feminist movements, and feminist public spheres and raise questions about

     ·the role of media for the strategies of feminist movements and
     their articulation and intervention at different historical moments

     ·the significance of cultural and media productions, of
     performativity and affectivity for conquering public spaces and in
     the identity formation of their activists

     ·the changes digital media have brought about in regard to the
     formation, the charcter and development of feminist movements

     ·the historical and recent meaning of media use for and in movements
     and its immanent ambivalences

     ·specific practices of media use on the different levels of feminist
     public spheres

     ·the translocal (transnational) potential to network via media,
     which possibly at the same time irritates power relations and
     stabilizes them

     ·the potential of media but also their limits for organizing and
     expressing individual and collective experiences and for the
     development of feminist awareness

     ·the mediated opportunities of negotiating histories of feminist
     movements and their activists and anchor them more permanently in
     the social and collective memory

     ·feminist representations in media and their relevance for agency

     ·the character, the forms and causes of anti-feminist movements,
     their effects in limiting feminist public spheres and the strategies
     to confront them.

/feministische studien/(feminist studies), a scientific, blind peer-reviewed journal for interdisciplinary women and gender studies, will in its issue 1 in 2017 include 6 to 8 articles that focus on the issues raised in the call. We ask for scientific articles (up to 40.000 characters) or discussion papers (up to 25.000 characters), which will be selected in a peer-review-process. We also welcome conference reports, as well as book reviews, which preferably – but not exclusively – relate to the focus of this issue.We kindly invite you to send an abstract of up to 2.500 characters until *3^rd July 2016*to the editors of the focus issue, Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Klaus (University of Salzburg), Prof. Dr. Tanja Thomas (University of Tuebingen) and Prof. Dr. Susanne Kinnebrock (Universtity of Augsburg).

Submission via: *(manuskripte /at/ feministische-studien.de) <mailto:(manuskripte /at/ feministische-studien.de)>*


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