In person icon Intersectionality in the Context of Growing Contestation. Social Movements, Resistance and Challenges in Europe: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives

Abstract

The panel explores the evolving role of intersectionality as a tool for political visibility, resistance, and transformation within and beyond feminist movements. Feminist, antiracist and climate justice movements have been crossed by internal tensions regarding intersectionality and inclusion of minoritised women both historically (hooks 1981, Carby 1982, Spelman 1991, Swaby 2014, Frank 2019) and contemporarily (Lépinard 2014, 2020, Sultana 2021, Christoffersen and Emejulu 2022). Feminist, women’s and social justice movements have increasingly mobilised intersectionality not only to address internal exclusions but also to resist external challenges tied to the rise of conservative and far-right politics (Farris 2017, Scrinzi 2024). Against the growing contestation of gender equality and emancipation movements in a context marked by de-democratisation (Lombardo et al., 2021) and climate change (Brown, 2017), intersectionality emerges as a critical framework to counter exclusionary practices and discourse. This includes confronting the invisibility of racially minoritised women and the racialisation of sexism, challenging the rise of antifeminist politics, but also countering the appropriation and co-optation of feminism by right-wing political actors. While these challenges are growing in the current context, they are not new and feminists have already faced and responded to similar developments in the past. How have intersectional theories and practices been used across time to challenge exclusion and resist co-optation? By bridging past and present struggles, and practices of exclusion both within and beyond feminist movements, the panel highlights the ways in which feminist activists have used intersectionality to resist hostile political contexts, generate political visibility, while also critically reflecting on the opportunities and limitations of these strategies.

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