Constructing Solidarity Across Difference in Feminist Encounters

Authors

  • Johanna Leinius University of Kassel

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17169/ogj.2020.72

Keywords:

Solidarity, Postcolonial Theory, Feminism, Social Movements, Peru

Abstract

In this article, I discuss how solidarity across difference can be fostered in meetings between social movements. Based on the writings of postcolonial feminists and an analysis of two social-movement encounters that took place in Peru, I develop three aspects of solidarity across difference: the recognition of the intersectionality of struggles, the acknowledgment of “unmapped common ground” as a shared basis for working together, and imagination as a mode for bridging the gap between oneself and the Other. I illustrate my argument with examples from the 5th Diálogos – a meeting between urban feminist, women’s, and anti-mining movements, scholar activists and artists – and the 13th Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Encuentro to show how the discursive construction of difference interwove with organizational decisions and the hegemonic ordering of difference to open or constrict the spaces in which solidarity across difference could be developed.

Author Biography

Johanna Leinius, University of Kassel

Johanna Leinius is a post-doctoral researcher in the program "Ecologies of Social Cohesion", University of Kassel. Previously she worked as research assistant at the Frankfurt Research Center for Postcolonial Studies (FRCPS) at the Cluster of Excellence "The Formation of Normative Orders", Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. She is spokesperson of the Section for Politics and Gender of the German Association for Political Science and of the working group 'Poststructuralist Perspectives on Social Movements' of the Institute for Social Movement Studies (ipb). Her research interests are postcolonial feminist theory, social movements, political ontology and socio-ecological transformation.

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Plakat der European Feminist Research Conference 2018: Motiv Zerknitterte Oberfläche in Rosa- und Grautönen

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Published

2020-05-28

How to Cite

Leinius, J. (2020). Constructing Solidarity Across Difference in Feminist Encounters. Open Gender Journal, 4. https://doi.org/10.17169/ogj.2020.72

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Section

10th European Feminist Research Conference in Göttingen (2018)

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