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- Convenors:
-
Leah de Haan
(University of Amsterdam and Chatham House)
Meena Masood (Queen Mary, University of London)
Send message to Convenors
- Chairs:
-
Meena Masood
(Queen Mary, University of London)
Leah de Haan (University of Amsterdam and Chatham House)
- Format:
- Paper panel
- Stream:
- Gender justice
- Location:
- S118, first floor Senate Building
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 26 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel explores how gender and violence relate to understandings of social justice. It considers how structures of domination, concretized within colonial settings, continue to be embedded in development policy and practice today.
Long Abstract:
How does gender and violence relate to our understandings of social justice?
This panel explores how gender and violence relate to understandings of social justice. It considers how structures of domination, concretized within colonial settings, continue to be embedded in development policy and practice today. While significant attention is paid to examining the historical inequities and violences shaping the key issues for development, such as displacement, conflict, and poverty, scrutiny is simultaneously needed of the solutions proposed, including examining the logics that drive solutions.
This involves asking questions such as: How do gender – and other axes of power, such as race, class, sexuality – and violence create the exceptionalism of certain crises? What challenges do researchers face in studying the role of gender and violence in development? How can the continuing colonial legacies of gender and violence be challenged? Relatedly, how can we come together to build solidarities to challenge these legacies? How does development’s complicated relationship with other sectors, such as humanitarianism, philanthropy, and corporate social responsibility, impact our understandings of the relationship between gender and violence?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 26 June, 2024, -Paper short abstract:
This paper interrogates the importance of addressing violence to social justice.
Paper long abstract:
This paper interrogates the importance of addressing violence to social justice. In doing so, it contributes to research which considers social justice a practice which challenges and addresses structural inequity – and the narratives on which it is based – and locates a confrontation of violence as central to this work. The paper looks at queer experiences of domestic violence and the complexity of social justice in the face of intersecting structures of domination. Primarily known as and considered within the context of violence against women, domestic violence provides a lens to critically interrogate gendered, racialized and heteronormative inequity and violence. Drawing on interviews with queer people in South Africa who have experienced domestic violence, including intimate partner violence, the paper identifies three components of the practice of social justice in this context: a central consideration of violence; a radical confrontation with the structures of domination; and an intersectional approach which mirrors the interconnectivity of the inequity it is addressing.
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores gender, violence, and social justice in sub-Saharan migrant women during COVID-19 in Tunisia. Through an intersectional feminist lens, it uncovers nuanced injustices, highlighting persistent colonial influences on contemporary development policies.
Paper long abstract:
This paper presents a critical analysis of the complex interplay between gender, violence, and social justice in the context of sub-Saharan migrant women living in Tunisia during COVID-19. Utilizing an intersectional feminist framework, the study goes beyond traditional narratives of victimization and recognizes the convergence of multiple forms of injustice. Through a qualitative exploration of five case studies, the paper highlights the crucial role of gender inequalities and social injustices in exacerbating the marginalization of this group during the pandemic.
Furthermore, the paper aims to unpack the tensions that arise from the clash between dominant social structures and the cultural nuances of the minority group. The analysis is rooted in intersectionality, revealing the persistence of structures of domination, particularly in colonial settings, and their continued impact on contemporary development policy and practice.
The paper uses a conceptual classification of social justice, considering both commutative or universalist justice and corrective justice. By doing so, it adds nuance to our understanding of the challenges faced by sub-Saharan migrant women and emphasizes the indispensable role of intersectionality as an analytical tool. This inquiry contributes to broader discussions on social justice and highlights the need to address deeply embedded colonial legacies in the formulation and implementation of development policies today.
Paper short abstract:
The article explores the material underpinnings of ecological and feminist struggles as expressions of anti-capitalist imperatives. This political process of relationality involves efforts to forge a new internationalism that takes singular forms in concrete conflicts.
Paper long abstract:
Our shared and differentiated vulnerabilities highlight the mechanisms with which patriarchal capitalism operates not only as an economic, but ontological system of oppression. The article explores the material underpinnings of ecological and feminist struggles as expressions of anti-capitalist imperatives. As such, it delves into the implicit and explicit meanings of agency and livability within political mobilisations against femicides and initiatives against toxic pollution. Youth activists for clean air in Catford, southeast London, expose how neo-colonial notions of dehumanisation intersect with toxic infrastructures in late-stage capitalism. The recent upsurge in femicides in Italy has ignited a new wave of internationalist protest emphasising femicides as crimes of power deeply embedded in patriarchal standards. The article considers notions such as Nancy Fraser’s “boundary struggles”, aiming to bridge the gap between natural and social reproduction while addressing issues of ecology, political power and racial and sexual oppression as interconnected phenomena. This political process of relationality involves efforts to forge a new internationalism, with precarity as a common concern, but one that takes singular forms in concrete conflicts. Analysing the potential of materialistic concerns within European radical Left movements and new pathways for intersectional alliances, the article seeks to highlight an anti-capitalist imperative for transformation.
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores how my identity as a young, Hindu middle-class Bangladeshi woman, with personal experiences of sexual harassment and academic understanding of gender issues, impacts my abilities to conduct feminist research on gender and violence in Bangladesh.
Paper long abstract:
This paper by reflecting on a feminist study on the diverse perspectives of women’s experiences of sexual harassment on public transport in Dhaka city highlights the challenges a Bangladeshi feminist researcher might face in studying the sensitive topic of gender-based violence in Bangladesh. It starts by portraying the patriarchal socio-cultural context in Bangladesh where this study was conducted. An overview of this research context informs the readers the importance of researching on sexual harassment experiences of women, which is not only considered a ‘taboo’ issue, but often overlooked by the government and non-government organizations working on women’s issues. The paper then goes on to describe the research methods for this study as well as exploring the research philosophy that guides these methodological decisions. Following this, I describe the way in which I used reflexivity to examine how my lived experiences have impacted the research process. In doing so, I shed light on different aspects of my identity and explained how the data I gathered and interpreted while conducting this feminist research is obtained and interpreted by ‘a young, middle-class Hindu Bangladeshi feminist researcher with not only academic understanding of feminist theories but also experiences of working on women’s issues in NGOs in Bangladesh’. Thus, this paper reveals the role of the lived experiences of a feminist researcher in influencing the methods and results of feminist research.
Paper short abstract:
Intercommunity strife and violence have affected women in myriad complex ways. Women have been disempowered and dispossessed in various ways by precipitating ethnic and sectarian conflicts. But, they have also been active agents, deeply implicated in the promotion of these conflicts.
Paper long abstract:
Intercommunity strife and violence have affected women in myriad complex ways. Women in different parts of the world have faced grave violations, suffering and repression, as a result of vicious battles waged over hardened and reified boundaries. Significantly, these battles have often been transposed onto women’s bodies, fracturing their lives and lifeworlds. Women have been disempowered and dispossessed in various ways by precipitating ethnic and sectarian conflicts. But, they have also been active agents, deeply implicated in the promotion of these conflicts. My paper deals with precisely this conundrum from the perspective of political movements in the Global South. It asks what motivates women to align themselves with the Hindu Right formation in contemporary India and preach violence to further its goals.
India has, of late, been buffeted by a rolling tide of majoritarian Hindu right-wing politics and overt centring of religious identities. This politico-ideological formation is a particularly militant creed, anchored to the idea of Hindu supremacy and envisioning the creation of a Hindu Rashtra or Nation, the borders of which will presumably subsume not just India, but other parts of Asia beyond it.
I was drawn towards examining militant aspirations and activisms of women of the Hindu Right. This paper looks at different dimensions of their militancy, both real and symbolic. For these women, violence against designated ‘others’ is an expedient means to further their movement’s goals. Through detailed conversations and interviews with them, the paper unpacks the considerations and convictions that stitch together these violent activisms.