Paper short abstract:

The paper analyses the application of difference feminist knowledge production and its interactions with group dynamics and formation processes inside the movement Se Non Ora Quando?.

Paper long abstract:

The movement Se Non Ora Quando?, founded in 2011, propagated “starting from oneself” as mode for political opinion formation and decisions. This alternative form of knowledge production, adapted from historical women´s groups and the difference feminist philosophy of the 1970s, consisted of an interactive discoursive exchange, out of which a common, unanimous group will should manifest itself. This practice, as interpreted by Se Non Ora Quando?, promised to be distinct from the `masculine’ way of doing politics, to provide a situated expertise starting from (embodied) daily experiences, and to ensure the personal growth and the participation of all women, with the goal of transversality: the construction of a political subject on the basis of the category gender. Based on an ethnography of the movement, and drawing on the concept of social automatisms, I will show how the practice of “starting from oneself” interacted within group dynamics and processes of feminist and political differentiation inside the movement, contributing, despite the intentions of unity and base-democracy, to divisions, conflicts and the unplanned and sometimes masked emergence of hierarchies. Based on these findings and employing a postcolonial informed Critical Political Theory perspective, I will discuss the interconnectedness of identity policy and common political demands of feminist movements.