Feminist alliances: the discourses, practices and politics of solidarity among inequalities

International Conference, 7 March 2019, Department of Social and Political Sciences, Scuola Normale Superiore, Florence,

Organizers: Donatella della Porta, Rossella Ciccia, Elena Pavan

Keynote speakers: Donatella della Porta, Isabelle Engeli, Myra Marx Ferree, Marta Rawłuszko, Chiara Saraceno, Mieke Verloo

Feminist movements have a long history of building alliances across social divisions of class, race, ethnicity, age, disability, and sexuality. These alliances have taken different forms ranging from the adoption of intersectional strategies within organizations, to staging coordinated campaigns, and the creation of advocacy and political coalitions at national and international levels. Such instances of collaboration strengthen the fight against all inequalities and have the potential to breed inclusive transformative projects. Nonetheless, the development of collaborative strategies among inequality-based organizations and political actors has been uneven across contexts and arenas and constantly endangered by the possibility of the exclusion of particular inequalities and dynamics of competition and conflict among groups.

The making of coalitions across inequalities and their political impacts is shaped by a complex range of factors. In recent years, a series of different crises– from the financial crash of 2008 to the refugee crisis and the rise of anti-politics, populist, racist and anti-gender mobilizations – have resulted in new threats and opportunities for solidarity among social movements, organizations and political actors representing different inequalities. Against this background, this conference focuses on the role played by discourses, practices and politics in the construction and political consequences of feminist alliances with inequalities defined by class, race/ethnicity, citizenship, age, disability and sexuality. We aim, in particular, to further discussion on intersectional feminist solidarity in political arenas such as 1) welfare state politics and policies; 2) knowledge production and the media; 3) civil society and grassroots politics, and 4) the politics of space and the geographical structuring of inequalities.

We welcome empirical or theoretical contributions which address one or more of the following issues:

1.What new goals and projects do coalitions among inequalities produce? How do we assess these goals from a normative and intersectionality perspective? Which gender equality principles are inclusive of other inequalities?

2.What forms have alliances between gender and other inequalities taken? Around which issues are alliances more likely to coalesce? Which strategies are adopted to build connections across issues and groups? When do groups support policies which do not benefit them directly?

3.What are the factors fostering or hindering coalitions across inequalities? What is the role played by issue framing, the use of media and digital communication technologies, resources, organizational forms, counter-movements, policy legacies, political institutions and the broader configurations of polities?

4.What are the outcomes of alliances between inequalities? What is the link between the forms and the composition of alliances and their outcomes? What other alliances and conditions are necessary for coalitions to influence politics and produce policy impacts?

Please send a 500 words abstracts to Rossella Ciccia (rossella.ciccia@sns.it) and Elena Pavan (elena.pavan@unitn.it) by January 7th, 2019.

A selection of submissions to the conference will be invited to form the basis for a special issue to be published in an international leading journal.

Schedule

07 January 2019: Submission of abstracts
15 January 2019: Notification of acceptance
20 February 2019: Circulation of papers
8 March 2019: Conference at Palazzo Strozzi, Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence
31 May 2019: Submission of special issue proposal gathering selected papers