The Anti-Gender Project and the Politics of Violence in Southern Europe

Abstract

In recent years, anti-feminist, nativist and anti-LGBTQIA* politics—commonly conceptualised in the literature as “anti-gender” (Paternotte & Verloo, 2021; Cornejo & Pichardo, 2017; Cabezas, 2022)—have gained significant ground across Southern Europe, reshaping political discourse and fueling new forms of political violence. This violence manifests in attacks on feminist, racialised, LGBTQIA* and women activists and politicians in civil society, institutional and digital spaces; in coordinated mobbing campaigns and trolling on social media; and in legislative and discursive strategies that undermine egalitarian and anti-discrimination politics. This panel explores the entanglements between anti-feminist, racial, and anti-LGBTQIA* politics and violence in Southern European contexts. At the same time, it also pays attention to the articulation of feminist, anti-racist, and queer responses to this violence. We ask: how is political violence in the institutional and digital spheres mobilised in Southern European contexts? Is there an interplay between institutional and digital actors who reproduce this political violence? How do feminist, queer, and anti-racist movements resist, reframe, and respond to such attacks? And what do Southern European cases reveal about the broader vulnerabilities of civil society and democratic institutions to authoritarian, exclusionary agendas? We welcome papers that engage these questions from diverse disciplinary and methodological perspectives. Comparative studies are particularly encouraged, as are contributions that foreground transnational connections and intersectional resistance strategies. By situating Southern Europe within the broader landscape of the so-called “anti-gender” mobilisations, the panel aims to advance theoretical and empirical debates on anti-feminist, nativist and anti-LGBTQIA* political violence and the possibilities for counter-mobilisation, while also illuminating how political cultures in the region both shape these dynamics and condition the strategies of resistance.

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