Invitation to the IPW Lecture Conceptualizing contemporary feminist counterpublics in Turkey: Activist agendas, organizational forms, and political strategies
Lecturer: Selin Çağatay (Central European University)
Moderation: Verena Kettner (IPW)
When: Monday, 9 May 2022, 18:00 CET
Where: online via Zoom (access link see below)
Abstract:
Recent debates in critical feminist scholarship indicate the crystallization of a co-optation vs. resistance dichotomy. While some point at the salience of ‘lean-in’ or ‘glass ceiling’ feminism and highlight feminism’s co-optation by neoliberalism (Eisenstein 2009; Fraser 2013), others celebrate the expansion of antisystemic forms of feminist resistance across the global North and South (Carty and Mohanty 2015, Harcourt et al. 2017). At the same time, there have been calls for moving beyond dichotomous understandings and for developing a more substantive research agenda around co-optation as well as resistance (de Jong and Kimm 2017; Eschle and Maiguashca 2018).
Building on these calls, this lecture develops a conceptualization of feminist counterpublics (Felski 1989; Fraser 1992; Friedman 2017) as differentiated from hegemonic feminisms that operate within a state-civil society-global governance nexus. Based on recent research (2017-2020) on the agendas, organizational forms, and political strategies of contemporary feminist activism in Turkey, I discuss that counterpublic feminisms tend to take more autonomous, informal, horizontal, or small-scale structures, and have an intersectional approach to gender politics. Yet, the demarcation line between hegemonic and counterpublic feminisms is contingent as a.) the feminist counterpublic temporally expands and shrinks based on the specific agenda at hand, and b.) counterpublic feminisms often seek alternative ways of institutionalization which might lead to coopted relationships with institutions, local state structures, and social movements. Conceptualizing feminist counterpublics beyond the co-optation vs. resistance dichotomy, I argue, may help researchers to understand feminism as a fragmented, multi-layered movement and to better grasp the complex relationship between feminist politics and the historically specific contexts in which it operates.
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