Paper short abstract:

This paper argues that women’s citizenship is crucial to the broader success of anti-violence activism in the war-torn Mexican state of Michoacán. While their activism often makes women vulnerable to further violence, their achievements and collaborations offer much-needed hope.

Paper long abstract:

This paper argues that women’s citizenship is crucial to the success of anti-violence activism in the Mexican state of Michoacán, which continues to be strongly affected by the Drug War. In the same way as gender-based violence is linked to broader structures of violence in Michoacán, women often find themselves marginalized within anti-violence activism. Viewed from a feminist institutionalist perspective, it is clear that their activism often makes women vulnerable to further violence. This in turn represents an obstacle for the overall success of citizen responses to crime and violence. At the same time, women’s groups’ successes in drawing attention to femicide and other gender rights issues, as well as women’s key roles within environmental movements and in the search for missing persons offer much-needed hope that violence can eventually be overcome, despite the considerable challenges. I argue that creating safe spaces for women’s collaboration is key to enabling their effective, gendered civic participation.

The 2019 ethnographic research this paper is based on forms part of a larger research project (Citizen Responses to Crime and Violence) led by Trevor Stack at the Center for Citizenship, Civil Society, and Rule of Law (CISRUL), University of Aberdeen, UK, which was funded by the ESRC and the CONACYT (Mexico).

Paper short abstract:

This paper presents an ethnographic research on labour inclusion initiatives for trans people in Argentina. We argue that the current effervescence of the issue should be contextualized, in order to illuminate the processes of struggle, and to trace the course of these demands.

Paper long abstract:

Although there are no official statistics about trans people in Argentina, studies carried out by local organizations have shown that almost 88% of them have never had a registered job. This is a result of their expulsion from home and school at an early age, and the lack opportunities apart from street-based prostitution. Since 1990, several organizations have emerged in the country as a response to this situation, focusing their efforts on the public denunciation of the violence exerted by security forces and on the organization of HIV/AIDS prevention campaigns.

Currently, their purposes have diversified and they have broadened their demands to encompass access to education, housing, healthcare and work. Regarding the latter, since 2008 the Argentinian state has supported the creation of protected cooperative ventures in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area, aimed at self-management of employment as a labour alternative. Recently, a new law passed in the National Congress, providing quotas for public positions and tax exemptions for private companies hiring trans people.

This paper presents the main questions and emerging issues of an ethnographic research on labour inclusion initiatives for trans people in Buenos Aires. It outlines three different case studies: the establishment of quotas in a state agency, the formation cooperatives, and the inclusion and management of "diversity" in the private sphere. We argue that the idea of novelty and the current effervescence of the issue should be contextualized, in order to illuminate the processes of struggle, and to trace the course of these demands in Argentina.

Paper short abstract:

The pharmaceutical HIV-prophylaxis PrEP raised hopes of eradicating HIV and the stigma associated with it. This paper investigates the ambivalences of a medicalized quest for inclusion into mainstream society as ‘respectable citizens’ that is predicated on a self-identification as ‘risk subjects’.

Paper long abstract:

PrEP, short for Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis, is a relatively new drug that provides effective protection against HIV. Since 2019, the costs for the pharmaceutical and concomitant examinations have been covered by German public health insurance for people considered at risk of contracting HIV, most prominently men who have sex with men. With this universal coverage, PrEP raised political and epidemiological hopes of eradicating the spread of HIV alongside the stigma associated with an infection. However, since PrEP allows for safer sex without a condom, the pharmaceutical also reinvigorated long-established stereotypes about risk-taking gays, no longer spreading HIV/AIDS but now (again) other sexually transmitted infections. In accordance with the concepts of ‘pharmaceutical’ and ‘biosexual citizenship’ (Ecks 2005, Epstein 2018), this paper argues that a move away from societal margins is often premised on access to health provision. Based on my ethnographic fieldwork about the pharmaceutical HIV-prophylaxis in Berlin, I present two past efforts of making PrEP available in Germany: an activist group’s information campaign and a pharmacist’s deal with a pharmaceutical company. In conversation with these initiatives, I argue that in the case of PrEP the pharmaceutical hope of demarginalization is an ambivalent one. I point out the complexities of a quest for inclusion into mainstream society as ‘respectable citizens’ that is predicated on a self-identification as ‘risk subjects’. Investigating the subjectivities mobilized by this hope of demarginalization, I finally ask who is able to move away from the margins and which exclusions PrEP might create or reinforce along the way.

Paper short abstract:

This paper presents my dissertation research on voluntarily childless people trying to apply for sterilization in Finland and their experiences of the process. In Finland the age limit for sterilization is 30 years unless person has three children or serious health reason for applying the procedure.

Paper long abstract:

In Finland, some voluntarily childless people wish to apply for sterilization before the age of 30. However, this is usually not possible, because according to the Finnish Sterilization Act (1970/283), a person who does not have significant health reasons for applying for sterilization must be 30 years of age or have 3 children alone or together with a spouse. In previous studies on voluntary childlessness, sterilization is often described as a welfare-enhancing event. Despite this, doctors are sometimes concerned about the possible regret of sterilization if a person changes his / her mind about having children. In my doctoral dissertation in the field of ethnology and anthropology, I examine what voluntarily childless persons think about sterilization and their experiences of it. I also ask, what are their attitudes toward the current Finnish laws applying to sterilization as well as toward the medical discussion surrounding it? My aim is to discover how voluntarily childless persons themselves define the concept of sterilization, what are their experiences of seeking sterilization, and how sterilization has influenced their lives later on. In my presentation, I present a preliminary analysis of my research material that represent the experiences of some voluntarily childless people seeking sterilization in Finland. The material consists of interviews and textual answers, which have been analyzed by means of close reading and text ethnography.