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- Convenors:
-
Henrike Kraul
(Freie Universität Berlin)
Anne Kukuczka (University of Zurich)
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- Format:
- Workshop
- Transfers:
- Closed for transfers
- Working groups:
- Gender & Sexualities - Queer Anthropology
Short Abstract:
This panel invites contributions that explore practices, politics, and visions of un/commoning through a feminist anthropological lens. It aims to discuss the multiple possibilities that feminist anthropology offers to think with and through un/commoning across diverse landscapes of scholarship.
Long Abstract:
This panel invites contributions that explore practices, politics, and visions of un/commoning through a feminist anthropological lens. It aims to discuss the multiple possibilities that feminist anthropology offers to think with and through un/commoning across diverse landscapes of scholarship. We propose that feminist anthropology by virtue of its methodology, epistemology and ethics, is well equipped to critically engage with processes of un/communing across various contexts and scales. At the same time, we think of feminist anthropology itself as a potential practice of un/commoning with its history of challenging hegemonic knowledges and knowledge production and envisioning hopeful futures – both within academia and beyond.
The aim of our workshop is to bring together scholars who draw on feminist anthropology to discuss their conceptual and ethnographic work and to position queer-feminist anthropology itself as an approach towards un/commoning. We are particularly interested in fostering conversations amongst scholars whose work revolves around one (or more) of the following aspects:
- Critical analyses of feminist commons and un/commoning practices, politics and visions related to creating collective modes of solidarity and care (e.g., feminist organising and struggles in relation to communal learning, urban commons, activism, amongst others)
- The promises and limits of un/commoning as political and ethical practice (e.g., What kind of communities are created through un/commoning? How do variously positioned actors address and work through asymmetrical power relations?)
- Reflections on feminist anthropology as an un/commoning practice and its potential for the transformation of our discipline (e.g., methodologically, theoretically, ethically).
Accepted contributions:
Session 1Contribution short abstract:
Queere Nudes als alltägliche Praxis fordern (radikal) feministische Debatten mit einem Fokus auf das Konzept des Gaze heraus. Die Präsentation zeigt aus ethnografischer Perspektive auf dreierlei Weisen auf, wie Queere Nudes Blickmacht (un)gewöhnlich werden lässt.
Contribution long abstract:
Nudes sind zu einer alltäglichen Medienpraxis geworden, die integraler Bestandteil der sexuellen Selbsterfahrung und ein Medium des Begehrens ist. Indem der eigene sexualisierte und erotisierte Körper durch Teilakt bis Akt Fotografien mit dem Smartphone eingefangen wird, stehen die Bilder im Zentrum feministischer Debatten über Objektifizierung und Empowerment. Zentral in diesen Diskussionen ist die Theorie des Gaze, die in psychoanalytischen Ansätzen Lacans verwurzelt ist und Machtverhältnisse in einer Subjekt-Objekt-Dichotomie gegenüberstellt. In meiner Präsentation hinterfrage ich diese binäre Logik aus einer ethnografischen, medienpraktisch orientierten Perspektive auf Queere Nudes. Entlang meiner Forschung nimmt das „(Un)Commoning the Gaze“ dabei eine dreifache Rolle ein: Anhand pluraler Stimmen der LGBTQI+ -Community analysiere ich Queere Nudes unter affekttheoretischen Ansätzen. Hierbei werden Nudes als affektive Medienpraktiken verstanden, die durch Beziehungen zu und innerhalb von Technologie – wie Smartphones und Plattformen – sowie durch inter- und intrapersonelle Verbindungen geprägt sind. Hierdurch verschiebt sich die Zentrierung des Gaze hin zu den vielseitigen affektiven Arrangements in denen Queere Nudes entstehen. Gleichzeitig zeige ich dadurch auf, wie Queere Medienpraktiken die inhärente binäre Logik des Gaze zwischen sehen und angesehen werden, durchbrechen. Deutlich wird außerdem, wie Queerness das (Un)Commoning zu einer sich kontinuierlich wandelnden, fruchtbaren Begleiterin ethnografischer Forschung macht.
Contribution short abstract:
This paper examines the interplay between gender identity and gender consciousness, exploring how feminist anthropology can address systemic inequalities and collective struggles. Using personal insights and the femicide discourse in Italy, it highlights feminist commons as transformative practices.
Contribution long abstract:
Feminist anthropology has long challenged hegemonic knowledge production and envisioned hopeful futures. However, its potential to address systemic inequalities and foster collective transformation can be strengthened by examining the interplay between gender identity and gender consciousness. This paper advocates for a nuanced approach that bridges individual experiences with structural critiques, emphasizing the importance of both dimensions for the future of feminist anthropology.
Drawing on personal reflections, I explore how structural inequalities shaped my gender consciousness, even as I struggled with gender identity categories. This perspective underscores the value of integrating identity and consciousness to re-engage with systemic power dynamics and shared struggles, fostering solidarity within feminist anthropology.
The evolving framing of femicide in Italy illustrates this shift. Previously tied to "honor killings" and patriarchal social capital, femicides are now individualized as "crimes of passion," obscuring their structural roots. Activists’ advocacy for the term "femicide" highlights these killings as products of patriarchal systems, exemplifying feminist commons in action.
This paper calls for feminist anthropology to embrace un/commoning practices by intertwining personal experiences with systemic critique. Awareness of these interconnected dimensions and re-politicizing gender through this lens strengthen feminist anthropology’s transformative potential and its contribution to creating feminist commons.
Contribution short abstract:
This exploration into the intimate spheres of revolutionary women asserts the transformative potential of acknowledging and theorizing the specific dynamics of feminine relationality in the broader context of feminist anthropology and un/commoning practices.
Contribution long abstract:
The paper foregrounds the distinct contours of feminine relationality among women in Latin American guerrilla movements, scrutinizing selected (auto)biographical works and diaries from Colombia, Chile, Cuba, and Nicaragua. It argues that insurgent intimacies, the deep emotional and social connections cultivated within these revolutionary contexts, exemplify an embodied practice of un/commoning rooted in specifically feminine experiences and perspectives. Without conflating feminine with feminist, the study critically examines how these bonds reveal the potential of practices and ethics to envision and enact new forms of collective existence, demonstrating the transformative power of shared resistance.
These narratives of feminine relationality illuminate the significance of empathy, mutual care, and solidarity in constructing resilient modes of communal resistance and existence, but also exemplify the challenges of female connection under patriarchy. Through a feminist anthropological lens, the analysis not only contributes to the reevaluation of communal bonds in conflict zones but also posits feminine relationality as a potent force for envisioning alternative futures. By focusing on the unique ways in which women in these movements connect, this research enhances our understanding of un/commoning as a complex interplay of political, ethical, and emotional practices.
Contribution short abstract:
When power targets the very resources of hope and strength needed to resist, how can resistance endure and reproduce itself? This study explores the micropolitics of reproducing resistance in the experiences feminist activists, through a co-creative feminist ethnography.
Contribution long abstract:
Systems of domination violate life; violence, injustice, disasters and crises make survival a matter of struggle. In response, people come together to defend life, to find ways to survive, resist and change. However, when these same powers target the very resources of hope and strength to resist and change (Lorde, 2007), how can the collective struggle endure and reproduce itself?
This study examines the practices and micropolitics of reproducing resistance in hard times, by focusing on self and collective narratives of feminists in Turkey. Using a co-creative ethnographic approach grounded in feminist and caring research ethics, the study employs creative and embodied methods —such as drawing, mapping, and narration— to foster dialogue and self-reflection in knowledge production. By integrating collaborative procedures from narration to interpretation, the research draws on the “knowledge-practices” (Casas-Cortés et al., 2008) of feminist activists to develop “movement-relevant theory” (Bevington and Dixon, 2005).
With a feminist sensibility toward singularities, commons and complexities, this research critically examines the vulnerabilities, and contradictions within resistance. It reworks the (dis)connections of theories of affect, care and micropolitics, bringing them to life in empirical context beyond Western-hegemonic paradigms. Thinking with feminist knowledge-practices, the “reproduction of resistance” is articulated as processes of transformation, care and construction across individual, relational, ethical, and ideological levels. Resistance is produced (and reproduced) through a multiplicity of bodies, relationalities, everyday practices and interactions, affective and micropolitical processes. A micropolitical analysis of everyday feminist practices and politics reveals how these contribute to healing, strengthening, and transformation, to endure resistance.