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Paper short abstract:

Based on my anthropological research (online questionnaires, digital ethnography, and in-depth interviews) I will analyse the dominant political discourses, everyday counternarratives and lived experiences (of new marriage couple) about gender and marriage during the pandemic in Hungary.

Paper long abstract:

Based on my anthropological research (questionnaires, digital ethnography, and in-depth interviews) I will analyse the dominant political discourses, everyday counternarratives and lived experiences (of new marriage couple) about gender and marriage during the pandemic in Hungary. Although marriage partnership is a personal alliance, it is not entirely a private or family affair. Modern marriage has long been central to how states have sought to regulate their populations and to influence feelings of national belonging. The connections between marriage and nationhood are particularly apparent in the case of Hungary. While marriage rates worldwide fell significantly during the pandemic, in Hungary the number of marriages increased. The demographic trend can be explained mainly by the recently introduced policy measures offering favorable terms for loans. Being married and planning to have a child are necessary conditions for accessing these. The political narrative of marriage has been primarily focused on traditional and heteronormative gender roles and articulates “beauty of love and care for others”, and motherhood as a woman’s purpose in life. So, the hegemonic political narrative emphasizes that in the name of marriage, women and men continue to assume conservative and more unequal gender roles. This heteronormative gender notion is also “symbolic glue” that holds together domestic political ideology and positions it against neoliberal Western societies. The everyday counternarratives and lived experiences about gender and marriage showed different views. Presumably, “working misunderstandings” are in the background. Other marriage motivations (e.g. emphasizing economic interests and romantic love), complex and multidimensional gender ideologies prevailed.

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Paper short abstract:

2014, the Swedish government declared itself as the ’first feminist government in the world’. Indeed, Sweden has been successful in promoting gendered equality, yet many retired women live in poverty. This paper explores the relation between state feminism and neoliberalism with regards to pension.

Paper long abstract:

2014, the Swedish government declared itself as the ’first feminist government in the world’. Indeed, Sweden has been successful in promoting gendered equality, yet many retired women live in poverty and Sweden has a higher share of poor pensioners compared to other Nordic countries. In a country that so clearly has stated out its ambition towards state feminism, why are so many older women living on an income below or near the EU poverty line? Although the Swedish pension system officially is described as gender neutral, this paper show that the social contract of pensions rests on a male norm which, in turn, is connected to neoliberal ideals of work and the individual. By looking at life histories and current life conditions of retired rural women, the paper asks: how does the pensions system affect women’s ageing and, especially, later life?

For better understanding state feminism and policies regarding pensions, it is important to explore how they work in practice. The paper argues that the current pension system neglects real issues on the ground, which is especially prominent for today’s pensioners. While the Swedish pension system may seem logical from the “inside” due to its neutrality, autonomy and self-regulating mechanisms, it is also abstract and generalized, which simplifies and overlooks “outside” local and particular lived experiences. Although the pension system claims to be equal for all citizens, it overlooks the fact that economic insecurity in later life is shaped by the intersection of gender, rural and larger societal living conditions.

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Paper short abstract:

I consider a form of spiritual 'fits' affecting young indigenous women resident in state-run boarding schools in Guyana as experiences of embodied gendered inequality in relation to the state, an affliction still contested.

Paper long abstract:

Menstruation in Amazonia, like bodies more generally, is chronically unstable. For indigenous Makushi women in Guyana, menstruation has transformed from a once rare occurrence to a regular monthly phenomenon. Furthermore, the gap between the onset of menarche and the start of re/productive life is widening, increasing the duration of monthly menstruation over a woman's life cycle. These transformations, constituted in and through social and economic processes, are greatly facilitated by the Guyanese state's contemporary schooling and healthcare systems and Makushi people's relations with them. In this paper, I focus on Makushi narratives that understand significant changes in practices related to menarche and menstruation to occur, primarily because young women are increasingly residing in state-run boarding schools during the onset of menarche. I draw on accounts of resultant 'fits,' a form of spiritual possession affecting these young indigenous women, while showing how the Guyanese State's schooling system works to distinguish productive from reproductive capacities and sever relations between these capacities, women's bodies and land. I suggest that the expression of these fits is linked to transformations in indigenous women's embodied experiences of gender. Moving from uxorilocal communities in which women's re/productive capacities were once central in constituting relations grounded in place toward intensified relations with the state through schooling, young indigenous women express an affliction of inequality still contested.

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Paper short abstract:

The contribution focuses on the transformations of subjectivity and masculinity of adult civilian men in Ukraine as affected by the ban on men leaving the country (introduced under martial law in response to the Russian all-out invasion in 2022), as well as by mobilization processes more generally.

Paper long abstract:

The contribution is based on ongoing research on the experiences of adult civilian men in Ukraine as affected by the ban on men leaving the country (introduced under martial law in response to the Russian all-out invasion in 2022) and the coping strategies they develop to sustain themselves and their families while either evading the ban and going abroad or remaining in the country. The contribution focuses specifically on the ways constrained mobility and limited freedom due to the travel ban, as well as mobilization more generally, affect and shape the subjectivity and masculinity of civilian men, especially against the backdrop of the hegemonic masculinity represented by a defender of the country. That is, it looks at how civilian men’s masculinities become transformed under these circumstances and what kind of alternative and “strategic” masculinities are formed and foregrounded. These transformations are considered in the context of broader societal transformations, state-citizen relationships, and gender regimes, where currently both trends can be observed: on the one hand, due to their participation in the army – an increased visibility of women and LGBTQ+ community and respective discussions about equality, while on the other, a sense that with the full-scale war, came a rollback that reinforced traditional gender roles. Methodologically, the research relies on interviews with both men who left and those who stayed in the country, as well as some of their partners, analysis of the transformations of the law and regulations governing the mobility of men, discourse analysis, and digital ethnography.

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Paper short abstract:

In this communication we will address the situation of women within the Catalan Penitentiary System from an anthropological and gender perspective. Also, we will discuss about penitentiary system as a power structure and social control, as a branch of a larger power system, the State.

Paper long abstract:

In this communication we will address the situation of women within the Catalan Penitentiary System from an anthropological and gender perspective. My research seeks to contribute to knowledge about the gender inequalities present in the penitentiary field, and especially in Catalan prisons, while identifying the practices of the penitentiary regulations that generate and/or perpetuate gender inequalities. At a specific level, I propose to analyze the programs of the Rehabilitation Model of Catalan prisons in terms of gender. This more specific analysis is integrated into a broader one on the penitentiary system as a power structure and social control tool also from the gender variable. At the same time, the prison system is considered as a power structure in itself, and at the same time also, as a branch of a larger power system, the State.

Historically, prisons have been designed by men, to incarcerate other men. In this way, women, being the minority population, have had to adapt by always receiving residual care that does not fully take into account and respond to their specific needs (Yagüe, 2007).

The contribution is relevant, as it focuses on a population made invisible in prison policies, unknown by a large part of the population and little studied at the level of qualitative social research, in the case of Catalonia, given that most of the literature it is located in the framework of Criminology.

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Paper short abstract:

Grasping the power dynamics of the state, the lens of gender needs to be considered alongside other identity ‘markers’. Through the experience of migrantized, precarious single mothers I show that exclusionary, normalized state ideologies affect individuals and groups in their intersectionality

Paper long abstract:

My movement-based, ethnographic research is a part of the DFG project Contestations of the 'Social', aiming to develop new perspectives of analysing the Social (State) Regime. The research takes place in the Oldenburg region, where some of Germany’s largest slaughterhouses precariously employ numerous migrants. In this context, I zoom in on the concept of the Arbeitsgesellschaft (labor society), by following the struggles of migrantized single mothers in accessing welfare and other state services. I will discuss, through biographies and ethnographic experiences, the struggles of EU-migrant single mothers (esp. Romanians) who risk losing their status as a welfare claimant but also their right of residency if not recognized as economically active by the state. Mothers thus find themselves in direct conflict with the German authorities while trying to perform carework and conform to the ideological imperative of contribution to the state through labor. Whether it is the Jobcenter refusing to provide aid because of ‘unwillingness’ to work, orthe Familienkasse’s incessive means-testing right of residency, migrantized single mothers have to dodge fraud accusations from various welfare Regime actors.

Through their struggles, this contribution shows how power dynamics created under the ideology of the labor society –which according to scholars such as Fraser (1994), Hirsch (2016) or Lessenich (2012) is (neo)liberally and conservatively rooted – are both gendered and racialized. To, in a truthful sense, recognize the 'gender’ of the state, we must understand it at the intersection of multiple dichotomies of inclusion/exclusion, as Ortner (2022) claims - of which migration is essential.

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Paper short abstract:

Italian current homophobic government are cancelling birth certificates of lesbian-parented’ children. Our socio-historical and ethnographic researches conducted between 2016-2023 explored impacts of enduring institutional heteronormativity on same-sex parenting.

Paper long abstract:

In the public space, Italian Meloni’s government is depicted as oriented by a firm gender heteronormative ideology. Indeed, a directive by Interior Minister Piantedosi recently seized upon a decision regarding surrogacy (GPA) from the Court of Cassation dated December 30, 2022, and ordered to erase the non-biological mother's name in birth certificates with two mothers, leading to further legal cases. However, we propose a “double critique” of the gender heteronormative ideology associated with Meloni's government, comprising both a historical and an ethnographic critique (Roux 2011). A socio-historical analysis reveals Meloni's policies as more extreme but part of the continuity of Italy's historically prevailing heteronormative and homophobic nature. Despite the EU's 2016 pressure leading to civil union approval for same-sex couples, filiation within same-sex-parented families was left unrecognized, resulting in the denial of rights based on social identity (Zamperini et al. 2016). Consequently, lesbian-parented families, lacking legal recognition, fall under the authority of the State, which dictates familial inclusion. An ethnographic critique illustrates how long-term political and legal instability prompts LGBT’s families to adapt their parenthood over time. Presenting findings from two ethnographic studies on legal cases between 2016 and 2023, involving interviews and participant observations, we analyze the impact of the Italian heteronormative order on same-sex parenting experiences. In conclusion, we explore the impact of socio-legal and political treatment on the intimate lives of same-sex families and the tangible institutional impacts on family’s practices.

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Paper short abstract:

This talk is about how within the context of a nationalist and settler-colonial project, gender roles can be both reinforced and, at times, transgressed and even deconstructed. Its focus is on religious-Zionist settlers in the West Bank, who live in isolated hilltop communities.

Paper long abstract:

In the past two decades, the illegal outposts (ma’achazim halo choki’im) have become the main tool by which religious-Zionist settlers appropriate land in the West Bank. The outposts are often small-scale rustic communities built on hilltops in relative isolation against Palestinian resistance. Many of them can be reached only by driving on a rough gravel road. Based on almost two years of fieldwork, in this talk I shed light on questions of gender and sexuality that have become prevalent among the outpost people. I will demonstrate how, within the context of a nationalist and settler-colonial project, gender roles can be both reinforced and, at times, transgressed and even deconstructed. In short, we will see how for the young settler couples, the hilltops of the outposts serve as spaces where they can become what they imagine as proper “men” and “women” (raising children together in a tight-knit isolated frontier-style manner as each partner adheres to traditional gender roles), while for others it is the opposite: for them, the outposts is where this small-house-on-the-prairie fantasy can be transgressed (as they break from traditional gender roles, and partake in rather radical experiments in terms of gender performance and sexuality). I will show how among a specific segment of outpost society, most settlers shift from the first model to the second. Ultimately, by focusing on the outpost people, my aim is to illuminate the relationship between nationalism, religion, settler-colonialism, and gender.

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Paper short abstract:

Whilst key in the reproduction of the bourgeois and Catholic order, women selling sex in Italy have been consistently stigmatized for their work. In this presentation, I discuss what the contemporary nostalgia for the brothel means at a time when women visibly selling sex are prevalently migrants.

Paper long abstract:

In this presentation I discuss the role of female-to-male prostitution in Italy’s moral and political economy of sexuality. State-organized female prostitution was a key pillar in the scaffolding of the country’s ‘national heterosexuality’ (Berlant and Warner 1998); it lay at the heart of its national and imperial project, and it lasted for almost a century, surviving intact major political upheavals – including two World Wars, fascism, its collapse, the end of the Kingdom and the birth of the Republic. Albeit key for the preservation of the bourgeois and Catholic order through the cultivation of male heterosexual dispositions, women selling sex were direly stigmatized for their work, overall being structurally positioned as a gendered class of ‘abjects’ (McClintock 1995). As sex workers denounced, this ambivalence did not stop after brothels were shut down (Comitato per i diritti civili delle prostitute 1983). As women’s autonomous negotiation power over the exchange value of their labour undermined the organized availability of heterosexual sex on male demand, brothels became mythological objects, celebrated in a range of cultural productions (Serughetti 2019). Around the end of the XX century, women visibly selling sex on the street were almost exclusively migrants, and the reopening of case chiuse (‘tolerance’ houses) made its way into right-wing parties’ political agendas (Crowhurst 2019). Against this background and drawing from my ethnographic research (Zambelli 2023), in this presentation I discuss the meaning of the peculiar nostalgia for the patriarchal and capitalist institution of the brothel circulating in present-day Italy.

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Paper short abstract:

Online misogyny against local politicians in Germany reveals the gendered practices of politics. Investigating self-censorship, I explore its impact on women's political paths and understanding how violence as inherent in politics sustains structural inequalities, I stress the need to address this.

Paper long abstract:

My research centers on the ethnographic exploration of online misogyny directed at local women politicians in Germany. Adopting a feminist perspective, I conceptualize politics as a profoundly gendered institution, wherein online misogyny is digitally enacted yet deeply entrenched in the gendered fabric of the political and societal landscape (Esposito 2023).

In this context, (online) violence is viewed as an inherent aspect of political engagement, serving as a structural component that upholds the prevailing political order and reproduces structural inequality (Krook and Restrepo Sanin 2019). Consequently, women in politics navigate a precarious space, operating within a male-dominated, potentially hostile environment with insufficient support structures and heightened exposure to violence (Butler 2009).

While (online) gender-based violence against women in politics has been extensively researched, my specific focus is on women politicians engaged at the local level in urban spaces (city councils, city-level migration councils). I seek to understand why locally active women encounter increased vulnerability to online harassment.

My research involves exploring the experiences of locally active politicians with online misogyny and its repercussions on their behavior. I investigate their coping strategies and everyday practices in response to cyber violence, with a specific emphasis on the deployment of various forms of self-censorship as both a precautionary measure and a consequence of online hate experiences. Self-censorship has significant implications, compromising the women's political engagement and career trajectories early on, acting as a "gate-keeping practice" that perpetuates the status quo of male-dominated political environments in urban spaces (Esposito 2023:463).