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- Convenors:
-
Begonya Enguix Grau
(Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, UOC)
Alexandre Pichel-Vázquez (MEDUSA Research Group)
Alexandra Deem (Freie Universität Berlin)
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- Formats:
- Panel
- Stream:
- Bodies, Affects, Senses, Emotions
- Sessions:
- Thursday 24 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Helsinki
Short Abstract:
The current rise of the far-right has made of 'Gender Ideology' the enemy to be fought and a 'symbolic glue'. This panel aims to explore the assemblage among bodies, gender, affects, and politics attending to the political possibilities of gendered bodies and their agency for breaking the rules.
Long Abstract:
Gender is a complex relational and classificatory category and an embodied activator of emotions. Emotions play an enormous role in politics, political action, and mobilization. Stuck to bodies and emotions, gender is constantly negotiated and pivotal in today's social and political configurations. From the far-right to the radical-left, gender and (anti)feminism are now present in the political spectrum as cornerstones and as the glue that sticks together disparate meanings and policies related to racism, migration, sexuality, diversity and alterity.
Far-right world leaders affectively present themselves as rule-breakers to save 'the people' from the oppression of the 'political correctness'. They use gender relations, hegemonic masculinity and antifeminism in their nationalist, populist, xenophobe, and LGTBphobe discourses. Gender relations and feminism have also historically been linked to the left and the radical-left organizations as the way of doing politics.
The aim of this panel is to explore the assemblage among bodies, gender, power and affects/emotions in the current political configurations and its potentiality to break and/or strengthen the rules. We consider gender relations as entangled, embedded and embodied with the political and the affective with strong resonances for the configurations of power and resistance.
We welcome contributions related (but not limited) to:
- The connections of gender, affects and the polarization of politics
- The political possibilities of gendered bodies (gender related activisms and New Social Movements)
- The (anti)feminist strategies in politics (right and left)
- Hegemonic/alternative practices in masculine politics
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 24 June, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
Antifeminism and men's issues find new spaces of legitimation in the manosphere. The paper analyses the languages and symbols of male activism in digital environments, showing the dynamics of a male mobilization between political instances and the claim of a narrative space.
Paper long abstract:
The manosphere is a complex of websites, social network pages, blogs and YouTube channels in which a form of deterritorialized male activism takes form. Contemporary male activism links radical anti-feminist instances to a claim for a narrative space for male issues. Male activism in digital environments represents a new form of gender associationism, in which dynamics of virtual sociality allow men to find a common space of discussion on the various dimensions of masculinity - sexual, social, relational. The dynamics of this mobilization are based on a radical anti-feminist political claim, which aims to criticize contemporary politics and women's privileges in society to the disadvantage of men, and the search for new spaces for negotiation of a masculinity lived daily as an emotional and bodily experience. The aim of this paper is to show the languages and symbols of this form of activism, looking at how men take part in it as gender subjectivities and the ways in which digital environments contribute to shaping contemporary gender activism.
Paper short abstract:
Poland has one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe and a "conscience clause" allowing doctors to refuse to perform an abortion due to moral or religious convictions. Since 2016, the "Abortion Dream Team" stands against this ban by informing women how to obtain medical abortion.
Paper long abstract:
"Contemporary Women's Hell ...". Under this title the leading Polish women's organization FEDERA published 2007 its report on the question of abortion in Poland. Since then, there has been hesitant progress in terms of reproductive autonomy. After the conservative PiS party won the elections in 2015, on-going efforts of fundamentalist pro-life actors and the Catholic Church to ban all abortions dominate the public discourse. In order to oppose these attempts, the feminist initiative "Abortion Dream Team" organizes pro-choice demonstrations and holds workshops teaching women how to obtain and self-manage a medical abortion. The rule-breaking collective aims to start a new public conversation about the reality of abortion in Poland, unburdened by the language of stigma, morality, or politics. This pro-choice activism serves as the backdrop for the investigation of the logics of representation and negotiation of gender in Poland by taking the nexus of politics, religion and affects into account. While reflecting the polarized struggle for political and cultural hegemony, the protesters break long established narrations on gender equality, human rights and corporeal autonomy. In accordance with the ethnological actor- and subject-cantered approach and based on the methodological triangulation of participant observation and discourse analysis, their pro-choice practices and protest strategies move into the focus of the contribution exploring the assemblage among gendered bodies, affects, and politics in contemporary Warsaw. Drawing on the theoretical approach of protest as "doing emotion" (Scheer), the paper addresses affective symbols, motivations and codings of the protesters by analysing demonstrations and visual protest media.
Paper short abstract:
Many countries are experiencing a rise of nationalism in their political landscapes, including China. Using “shipping” practices and internal conflict as examples, this paper investigates how gender relation is embedded and reframed in the current Chinese online popular nationalist discourses.
Paper long abstract:
In recent years many countries from west to east have been experiencing a conspicuous rise of nationalism in their political landscapes. As a key factor, social media offer multiple possibilities for these movements to forge and circulate their messages through new communication channels and sub/pop-cultural elements. Among these movements, a new generation of Chinese cyber-nationalism wave, whose activists are labeled as “little Pink” or “fandom girls”, has gained much attention since 2015. Usually, they are described as a group of aggressive social media users. They are recognized for their strong female-led fandom characteristics and emotional discourse of irony/ridiculing, seduction, and romance.
In this context, I proposed the following questions: How is gender relation embedded in the current Chinese online popular nationalist discourses? How do the young female Chinese online nationalists reframe this gender relation? In the process of a multi-sited online ethnography, I investigated the conflict between female Chinese online nationalists and other male netizens during the “boycott NBA campaign”, as well as their daily “shipping” practices related to the Chinese national leaders and diplomats. Based on the current mixed-method data analysis results, I argue that the young female Chinese online nationalists strategically appropriated the ideological hegemony of Chinese nationalism to resist male netizen’s gender stereotyping against them. Despite its diverse and queer aspects, these online Nationalists´ “shipping” imagery about Chinese national leaders and diplomats is still limited in a heteronormative frame.