Programme

Marxist Feminist Conference Programme (Draft, June 2018)

Conference Overview

October 5

15:00                                    Registration desk opens

15:30 – 16:00                     Welcome from the conference organizers

16:00 – 17:15                     Keynote: Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

                                               Preliminary title:  “Outside in the Funding                                                                                         Machine”

17:30 – 19:30                     Plenary Roundtable: Marxist Feminism in Sweden and                                                                             the Nordic Countries

                                               Speakers: Göran Therborn; Paulina de los Reyes; Hansalbin                                                     Sältenberg. Moderator: Diana Mulianari.

19:30                                    Reception

October 6                          

9:00 – 11:00                       Workshops

11:15 – 12:15                     Keynote: TBC

12:15 – 13:00                     Lunch

13:00 – 15:00                     Workshops

15:00 – 15:30                     Coffee break

15:30 – 17:30                     Workshops

18:00 – 19:00                     Keynote: Nikita Dhawan

19:15                                    Social event and dinner

October 7

9:00 – 11:00                       Paper panels  

11:15 – 12:15                     Keynote: Frigga Haug

12:15 – 13:00                     Lunch

13:00 – 15:00                     Workshops

15:00 – 15:30                     Coffee break

15:30 – 17:00                     Concluding plenary roundtable

                                               Speakers: Nira Yuval Davis; Nikita Dhawan; Stefania Barca.        

Programme in detail

October 5

15:00                                    Registration desk opens

15:30 – 16:00                     Welcome from the conference organizers

16:00 – 17:15                     Keynote: Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

17:30 – 19:30                     Plenary Roundtable: Marxist Feminism in Sweden and                                                                             the Nordic Countries

                                               Speakers: Göran Therborn; Paulina de los Reyes; Hansalbin                                                     Sältenberg. Moderator: Diana Mulianari.    

19:30                                    Reception

October 6                          

9:00 – 11:00                       Workshops

Conference Theme: Transforming ourselves. Transforming the world (I)

Title: Gaining strength for the way to the future by working with the past

Convenors:

Frigga Haug (Berlin Institute of Critical Theory)

Karharina Schwabedissem (Berlin Institute of Critical Theory) Melanie Stitz (Berlin Institute of Critical Theory)

Topic: Recognising practices which lead to one’s submission and using them to lead societal change.

Method: Memory-work.

Conference Theme: Transforming ourselves. Transforming the world (II)

Title: The Womanist Read-In

Convenor:

Emma Cager-Robinson, (Afiya Center in Dallas)

Topic: Feminist Texts

Method: An hour of reading and then 1 hour of discussion of texts read.

Social Reproduction and Care (I)

Title: Beyond all Fundamentalisms at the Intersection of Work, Production and Reproduction

Convenor(s):

Libertá Donne

Topic:Analysis of practices that allude to overcoming the capitalistic model, such as different uses of power, the ascription of different meanings to democracy and the role of the state, the implementation of neo-mutualistic practices where women are more and more than main actors.

Method: Discussion.

Social Reproduction and care (II)

Title: Feminist Navigation of Classrooms

Convenor(s):

Asja Lazarevic (Lund University)

Magrith Mena (Lund University)

Andrea Tock (Lund University)

Topic: Care work in the production of graduate students.

Method: Fishbowl method.

Feminist Struggles and Solidarity

Title: What would an alternative to capitalism which could unite fragmented struggles entail?

Convenor(s):

Jacklyn Cock (Witwatersrand University, South Africa)

Khayaat Fakjer (Stellenbosch University, South Africa)

Topic: Producing a vision of possible alternative Marxist feminist futures.

Method: Group discussions, story building/telling.

Alternatives

Title: Alternative Media, Radical Politics and the appropriation of Truth Seeking by Right Wing Politics

Convenor(s):

Malise Rosbech (Hysteria Editorial Collective)

Topic: History of alternative media and how it has pushed progressive politics into the public sphere, its appropriation by right wing groups and how activists can confront this appropriation and continue its ethos of maintaining a nuanced and progressive debate.

Method: Not specified.

Spaces of Oppression and Means of Emancipation

Title: Marxist Feminism and the Prison-Industrial Complex: Mapping the Connections

Convenor:

Ashley J. Bohrer (Hamilton College)

Topic: Discussing police and prisons from a Marxist feminist perspective.

Method: Individual work answering questions and then groups work mapping the answers to produce a diagram of multiple linkages and interconnections.

11:15 – 12:15                     Keynote: TBC

12:15 – 13:00                     Lunch

13:00 – 15:00                     Workshops

Conference Theme: Transforming ourselves. Transforming the world (I)

Title: The Body as a Mission Statement

Convenor(s):

Aiko Kazuko Kurosaki (Independent dancer)

Topic: Performance art.

Method: Performance which will be practiced inside and then taken out to the street.

Conference Theme: Transforming ourselves. Transforming the world (II)

Preliminary title: Ecofeminism (merged workshop)

Convenors:

Lilly Schön (Frei Universität Berlin)

Sören Strohecker (Freie Universität Berlin)

Gitte Pedersen (University of Copenhagen)

Magda Garlinska (Europa-Universität Viandrina Frankfurt)

Topic: Ecofeminism.

Method: TBC

Social Reproduction and Care (I)

Title: How can ‘Landnahme’ locate the role of care work for the capitalist mode of production?

Convenors:

Anna Saave-Harnack (Friedrich-Shiller University Jena)

Topic: Finding a definition of Landnahme which is applicable to Marxist feminism and explain gender relations and relations of production.

Method: Politicized memory work, exploring the accumulated knowledge of Marxist feminists.

Social Reproduction and Care (II)

Title: Commonism & Care: A femma analysis if the care crisis and strategies to deal with it

Convenors:

Corinna Dengler (University of Vechta)

Ann-Christin Kleinert (University of Vechta)

Topic: How can a Marxist feminist standpoint tackle the care-crisis and develop strategies for an emancipatory, gender-just distribution of care?

Method: World Café.

Feminist Struggles and Solidarity

Title: Feminist Leadership and Collective Organizing

Convenor(s):

Anna Striethorst (Sozialfabrik)

Serap Altinisik (European Women’s Lobby)

Topic: Exploring concepts of feminist leadership, empowerment and power dynamics within feminist movements.

Method: Discussion.

Alternatives

Title: Beyond Resistance, Prefigurative Politics Towards Alternative Forms of Social Reproduction

Convenors:

Lara Monticelli (Copenhagen Business School)

Laura Horn (Roskilde University)

Ana C. Dinerstein (TBC)

Suryamayi Clarence-Smith (Sussex University)

Topic: Initiatiation of a debate on prefigurative politics. Prefigurative inititives have a focus on experimentation with social, economic and cultural practices aimed at subverting the status-quo and envisaging future societies and reconceptualising the ‘good-life’.

Method: Critical collective mapping.

Spaces of Oppression and Means of Emancipation

Title: How can we define the problems of bureaucracy from a Marxist feminist perspective?

Convenors:

Linda Nyberg (Lund University)

Vanja Carlsson (Gothenburg University)

Dalia Mukhtar-Landgren (Lund University)

Topic: Feminist responses to the issues of increasing bureaucracy and bureaucratization as a result of neoliberal policies and technological development.

Method: Discussion.

15:00 – 15:30                     Coffee break

15:30 – 17:30                     Workshops

Conference Theme: Transforming ourselves. Transforming the world (I)

Preliminary Title: Vulnerability/Empathy (merged workshop)

Convenors:

Nanna Hlín Hallsdórsdóttir

Shuxian Zhou (Freie Universität Berlin)

JM Wong (University of Washington)

Stephanie Yingyi Wang (University of Washington)

Topic: Identifying the affective and material logics of vulnerability and empathy.

Method: TBC

Conference Theme: Transforming ourselves. Transforming the world (II)

Title: Struggling and Theorizing as a lesbian feminist Marxist?

Convenor:

Jules Falquet (University of Paris Diderot, France)

Topic: Lesbian Feminist Marxist theorizing. How far can we go into development lesbian-feminist-marxist theorizations and activism in out groups and institutions? Are we “open”, can we be “open” as lesbians, in our groups and institutions? What happens if we bring our reflections as lesbian feminist-marxists to these groups/institutions? And what do we understand as ‘specifically lesbian contributions”?

Method: Horizontal conversation using feminist-popular-participative education tools.

Social Reproduction and care (I)

Title: Fundamentalism as Reproduction

Convenors:

Stephen Cowden (Coventry University)

Rashmi Varma (University of Warwick)

Niral Yuval-Davis (University of East London)

Topic: Theorising fundamentalism as a distinctively gendered form of social reproduction.

Method: Intervention by three panellists and then participatory workshop, discussions in groups of the policy and political implications of including religious fundamentalism as a key aspect of social reproduction theory.

Social Reproduction and care (II)

Preliminary Title: Agency and Emancipation (merged workshop)

Convenors:

Käthe Knittler (Feminist Economist)

Birge Krondorfer (Feminist Philosopher)

Alex Wischnewski (Berlin Institute for critical theory),Ines Schwerdtner (Berlin Institute for critical theory), Junny Funke-Kaiser (Berlin Institute for critical theory)

Topic: Exploring how political, economic and social divisions are established and how connections between Marxist feminist and queer movements are created.

Method: TBC

Feminist Struggles and Solidarity

Preliminary Title: The Politics of Transnational Solidarity (merged workshop)

Convenors:

Giulia Marchese (National Autonomous University of Mexico)

Ana Miranda Mora, (National Autonomous University of Mexico)

Diana Mulinari (Lund University)

Ana Gonzalez (UBA, Argentina)

Lisarb Valeria Montes D’Oco (Social Worker and Masters Student in Social Work)

Mia Liinason (University of Gothenburg)

Olga Sasunkevich (University of Gothenburg)

Ranjana Padhi (Feminist Writer and Activist)

Sreerekha Sathiamma (University of Virginia)

Topic: Domination and subjugation in modern neoliberal capitalism and practices and meanings of feminist resistance and transnational solidarity.

Method: TBC

Alternatives

Title: Basic Income as a Tool for Changing Gender Division of Labour

Convenor(s):

Slawomir Czech (University of Economics in Katowice)

Zofia Lapniewska (Jagiellonian University in Krakow)

Anna Zachorowska-Mazurkiewicz (Jagiellonian University, Krakow)

Topic: Basic income as a tool to alleviate gender inequality through changing the gender division of labour.

Method: Presentations by each of the presenters of different aspects of basic income followed by a group discussions amongst the participants on the topic.

Spaces of Oppression and Means of Emancipation

Preliminary Title: Marxist Feminist Approaches to Law (merged workshop)

Convenors:

Donatella Alessandrini (Kent Law School)

Kate Bedford (Birmingham Law School)

Pabha Kotiswaran (Dickson Poon School of Law King’s College London)

Maja Sager (Lund University)

Marta Kolakiewicz (Lund University)

Topic: What can a Marxist Feminist analysis reveal about law’s treatment of social reproduction? And what does it mean to rely on the law in a struggle for struggle for social justice?

Method (preliminary): Short presentation by organisers followed by a collective discussion

18:00 – 19:00                     Keynote: Nikita Dhawan

19:15                                    Social event and dinner

 October 7

9:00 – 11:00                       Paper panels

Gendered and Raced Bodies at Work 

Moderator: Marco Bacio (Lund University)

Love as Means of (Re)Production

Elisabeth Wide (University of Helsinki) and Lena Näre (University of Helsinki)

Can the Black Sexworkers Speak!? Nigerian sexworkersexperiencing global injustice

Carmen Glink Buján (Freie Universität)

(Im)material Homes: Conceptualization of Home Among Russian-speaking Women Engages in Commercial Sex in Finland

Anastasia Diatlova (University of Helsinki)

Gendered-Capitalist Embodiment of ‘Wunschkinder/Vansh’ and Prenatal Diagnosis in Germany and India

Sheela Saravanan (Heidelberg University)

Gender, care and work in the context of modern slavery

Paula Mählck (Stockholm University)

Social Reproduction Feminism: exploring the links between oppression and exploitations

Moderator: Riya Raphael (Lund University)

Marx and Social Reproduction Theory

Ankica Čakardic (University of Zagreb)

From welfare to workfare: Racialisation and gendering of worker-citizens

Daria Krivonos (University of Helsinki)

Time and The Sweatshop: Circulations, Exploitation and Social Reproduction

Alessandra Mezzadri (SOAS) and Sanjota Majumder (Goldsmiths, University of London)

Empowerment vs. Liberating Experience

Celeste Murillo (Pan y Rosas)

Women’s movements, organizations and resistance

Panel Chair: Maja Sager (Lund University)

Indigenous Movements Women’s, Marxism in Practice, Under Pressure Due to Damage to the Ancestral Territory

Eduardo Erazo Acosta (Universidad de Nariño, Colombia)

The Challenge of Socialist Organizing in Rural America

Nichole Smith (George Washington University) and Dan Moshenberg (Colombian College of Arts and Sciences)

Reconceptualization of Women’s Organizing in Serbia – Suggesting a Possible Strategy of Women’s Resistance to Restrictive Population Policies

Jana Šarić (University of Belgrade) and Jelena Lalatović (University of Belgrade)

In Defence of Historical Materialism in Contemporary “Post-Socialist” Feminist Activist Art Studies

Antonova Natalya (Central European University)

Gender (in)equality and women’s (dis)empowerment in times of multiple crises

Chair: Annika Bergman Rosamond (Lund University)

Feminist Economics and Women’s Alienation: Understanding the Current Economic Crisis

Bhabani Shankar Nayak (Coventry University)

Women’s Emancipation in Times of Global Crisis: Neoliberalism and Feminism: a Marxist view on the extension of rights

Andrea D’Atri (Pan y Rosas)

The Land Question and Gender Mainstreaming

Benigna Betual Matabele (Aga Khan Foundation – Mozambique)

Options about Democratization of the Alevi Society through Self-Empowerment of the Alevi Women in the European Diaspora

Zeynep Arslan (University of Vienna)

Women and Homelessness and how Invisibility is negotiated from a Marxist Feminist Perspective

Beatriz Hoffmann-Kuhnt (Concordia University)

11:15 – 12:15                     Keynote: Frigga Haug

12:15 – 13:00                     Lunch

13:00 – 15:00                     Workshops

Conference Theme: Transforming ourselves. Transforming the world (I)

Title: The ‘Other’ Narratives: discussing the impact of capitalism in the production of reproduction of narratives and representations

Convenors:

Catarina Santos (Guerilla Resistance)

Frej Haar (Guerilla Resistance)

Topic: Intersectionality and representation, with a focus on class and the influence of capitalism.

Method: Short paper presentation then group work about tools of oppression.

Social Reproduction and Care (I)

Preliminary Title: Marxist Feminist Explorations of Care and Social Reproduction (merged workshop)

Convenors:

Chelsea Szendi Schieder (Aoyama Gakuin University)

Yushiko Shimada (Ota Fine Arts/University of Tokyo)

Rin Odawara (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies)

Maya Andrea Gonzalez (University of California) Cassandra Troyan (Linnaeus University)

Claire English (University of Reading),

Camille Barbagallo (Keele University)

Dylan Dunnett (University of Birmingham)

Topic: Exploration of how care and social reproduction support and challenge processes of capital accumulation.

Method: TBC

Social Reproduction and care (II)

Title: Structural overaccumulation, primitive accumulation of capital and care - Text examples by Marx and Luxemburg

Convenor(s):

Ann Wiesental (Feminist writer and activist)

Topic: Social Reproduction and the Relations of Production

Method: Small group work on different text excerpts, questions and moderation cards with a final mapping.

Feminist Struggles and Solidarity

Title: Marxist-Feminism and Research on Far-Right Politics

Convenor(s):

Josefine Landberg (Lund University and Vrije Universiteit Brussels)

Marie Meyle (Student and Political Activist)

Colm Flaherty (Lund University)

Topic: How can a Marxist Feminist approach help us understand support for European far-right politics? Engaging critically with the lack of discussion on the role played by class, gender and race in mainstream research on the European far-right.

Method: The workshop will be guided by a 3-page paper distributed to workshop participants. The paper will be discussed in an interview with the authors and then a discussion with all participants.

Spaces of Oppression and Means of Emancipation

Title: Transnational Feminism Beyond Western Liberalism: Notes from the Canadian Scene

Convenor(s):

Sara Swerdlyk (Central European University)

 Heather McMullen (Queen Mary University)

Topic: Misconceptions of Western liberalism as well as its collusions with the rising tide of global far-right movements. Using notes and lessons from the Canadian scene.

Method:

Popular education techniques, i.e. agree-disagree, Body-tracing.

15:00 – 15:30                     Coffee break

15:30 – 17:00                     Concluding plenary roundtable:  Nira Yuval Davis; Nikita Dhawan;                                       Stefania Barca