Not Quite Equal: Exploring Intersectional Power Relations in the European East-West Divide

Description

The workshop will explore Central and Eastern European feminist perspectives on the hierarchising and necropolitical character of the European East-West divide as well as visions for just futures.

In contemporary global terms, the ‘Eastern European’ region is perceived as part of Europe. After 1989, the neoliberalisation of the market, Westernisation of culture and social values, and subsequent entry into the European Union made the countries that used to be part of the so-called Eastern Block ‘finally’ European. Yet, being from ‘Eastern Europe’ carries certain devaluing connotations that lead to social hierarchisation in everyday and institutional encounters. In the West, individuals from Eastern and parts of Central Europe (CEE) - and women in particular - have long been othered, structurally marginalised and utilised as cheap labour. In the current COVID-19 pandemic, the devaluation of CEE workers obtained a literal necropolitical character when several West-European countries protected the lives of their residents through social pandemic measures, such as ‘lockdown,’ while at the same time imported, with minimal health protections, poor working conditions and low wages, a CEE migrant labour force to harvest seasonal crops and provide care work.

This workshop will bring together CEE feminist scholars, who are academically located within both CEE and Western Europe, to discuss what it means to be equal-but-not-quite as CEE subjects, feminists, activists, workers and academics, in the context of being part of Europe and the world more globally. Speakers will be invited to reflect on where CEE is in intersectional theory and how CEE experiences contribute to the analysis of power relations in Europe.

By relating old and new CEE scholarship with a broad range of anti-racist and decolonial feminist theories, the workshop will inform international feminist and decolonial debates, which commonly fail to include CEE voices and scholarship. Incorporating CEE perspectives is crucial for an in-depth analysis of the nuances of oppression, the broadening and deepening of intersectional debates on gender and race as social categories of power and for identifying ways to foster intersectional justice in Europe and beyond.

The workshop is dedicated to the memory of trailblazing feminist scholars Hana Havelková and Marina Blagojević Hughson.

Period	31 May 2021
Event type	Workshop
Degree of Recognition	International