On our own terms? On the contestations of feminist knowledges and minoritarian politics in current times
RINGS Conference 2025
October 30-November 1, 2025 at Utrecht University
Hosted by the Graduate Gender Programme (GGeP) at Utrecht University
and the Netherlands Research School of Gender Studies (NOG)
We are at a time when critical knowledges and minoritarian politics are contested by a variety of actors, ranging from social movements to political parties and institutions. Think of the – by now (in)famous – anti-gender and anti-feminist discourses that pervade the global landscape, casting sexual and gender education as well as reproductive and LGBTQIA+ rights as a threat for children, the ‘natural order’ of society, and the national community at large. At the same time, supra-national institutions like the EU, the UN, or the IMF operationalize reproductive and LGBTQIA+ rights or environmental discourses as developmental benchmarks that the peripheries need to catch up to. Not coincidentally, we are witnessing in many countries of the Global South, such as India, Uganda, and Colombia, not just the rise of anti-feminist and anti-gender discourses, but the articulation between them and new nationalist narratives featuring the critique of colonialism and of Western imperialism. All this is happening while imperialist Russia conducts political and ideological wars under the banner of fighting Western hegemony and defending the ‘traditional family’. Adding to such a complex landscape, postcolonial perspectives and expressions of solidarity with Palestine after October 2023 have been harshly condemned in most of Europe as well as the United States. In universities particularly, concerns have been related to questions of ‘safety’ and ‘antisemitism’, thus raising questions about the meaning – as well as the current status – of academic freedom. Highlighted here are but a few conspicuous cases operating in a vast and differentiated landscape that is underpinned by the workings of global capitalism.
What we see in all these instances is that many of the political signifiers that ‘we’ as critical scholars and politically engaged actors deploy reappear in sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic, antisemitic and other discourses for exclusionary, oppressive, and ideological purposes. ‘Safety’ and ‘antisemitism’ themselves are cast against those same minority groups in which these signifiers are habitually mobilized. ‘Gender’ – the analytical tool at the core of Gender Studies and other critical fields – is mystified as a spectre aimed at destroying and perverting children, families, and society at large. Anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles and practices enter nationalist rhetoric and function as tools, not just for further marginalizing gender, sexual, or indigenous minorities, but for denying the responsibilities of (neo)colonial entities. Similar reversals happen with many other (more or less dubious) signifiers, such as ‘critical race theory’, ‘social justice’, and ‘woke’, to name a few. While attempting to trace these discursive developments on a global scale, it is also crucial to consider the specificity and thus the complexity of this type of politics across geopolitical contexts. In this conference, we aim at exploring these processes of (re-)appropriation, resignification, thwarting, co-optation, and hijacking of critical knowledges and minority claims. Our concerns are not with mere semantics, but with discursive practices and politics. In doing this, we seek to better understand the current historical conjuncture, also to be able to conceive of political alternatives and strategies for resistance and change. We also highlight the importance of and invite reflections on transnational collaborations in countering oppressive narratives.
Aside from 20-minute paper presentations, we encourage a variety of other presentation formats in the conference, including roundtable discussions, conversations, interviews, visuals, multi-media and performance. We invite contributors to reflect on questions related to the conference topic, including:
• How do we understand and define these processes of ‘(re-)appropriation, resignification, thwarting, co-optation and hijacking’ by (far-)right populists, religious conservatives, authoritarian populists, (neo-)fascists, liberals, conspiracists, and other political and institutional actors?
• Is there something in ‘our’ (feminist, queer, antiracist, anticolonial) discourses that makes signifiers such as ‘gender’, ‘colonialism’, ‘safety’, and others vulnerable to such processes?
• What are the genealogies and (longer) histories of these processes, and how do we trace and narrate them in connection to the current political moment across the globe?
• What are the strategies implemented by critical scholars and feminist, queer, antiracist, and anticolonial political actors to ‘speak back’ to their detractors and conceive of political alternatives?
• What practices of solidarity are possible, especially in light of the current mediascape that invisibilizes and erases those conflicts that are happening in such locations as Sudan, Congo, or India?
• All too often we focus on how the attacks on critical knowledges and minority politics unfold in Northern American and European settings, but what about similar discourses and practices that play out beyond the Global North and the European West?
• How do digital and social media platforms transmit both the spread and suppression of (appropriated) feminist and minoritarian discourses?
• How does environmental justice inform (the appropriation of) feminist and minoritarian discourses?
• How do institutional policies affect academic freedom, and how might these be challenged?
Abstracts (400 words max.) must be sent to ringsutrecht@uu.nl, before May 1, 2025.
At the end of the abstract, in the same document, please add a short bio (100 words max.).
The conference is planned to be held on location at the city centre campus of Utrecht University. Asonline participation where it is needed. The RINGS General Assembly will take place on November 1, 2025, at Utrecht University, online participation is possible.
Additional information about registration fees, conference program, and keynote speakers can be found on the conference website. [https://rings.sites.uu.nl].