Reaction and Reimagination: Race, Gender, and Contemporary Struggles Over Democracy, Power, and Epistemic Authority

Abstract

The politics of race, gender, and sexuality have long been marked by both reactionary movements and transformative projects, and the simultaneity of these two forces is increasingly pronounced in contemporary politics as right-wing actors harness new technologies to repackage and reinforce longstanding hierarchies at the same time as progressive actors try to resist and transform them. Bringing together analyses of digital media, political institutions, social movements, and knowledge production, this panel examines some of the ways in which raced and gendered power are being reconfigured through both reactionary and transformative cultural, political, and scholarly projects. By juxtaposing explorations of reactionary mobilizations with examinations of intersectional feminist reimaginings, the papers also illuminate some of the ways in which the intersecting politics of race, gender and sexuality are at the core of contemporary struggles over democracy, power, and epistemic authority. The first two papers take up these questions through examinations of the mobilization of race and gender in reactionary digital cultures. Micah English’s paper “Race, Masculinity, and the Multiracial Right: The Manosphere’s Appeal to Men of Color,” examines how the “manosphere” appeals to Black and Latino men by fusing racial grievance, economic precarity, and patriarchal revival, producing a multiracial variant of right-wing masculinity. Kamile Grusauskaite’s paper, “Intimate Reactionary Publics: Women Influencers and the Digital Politics of Care on the Reactionary Right,” analyzes female reactionary influencers who reframe anti-feminism through affective economies of care, authenticity, and domesticity, demonstrating how conservative femininity circulates audiovisually across platforms. The remaining papers focus on progressive and institutional sites of contestation. In her paper “Regenerating Research Culture: Bringing the Lessons of Feminist STS Approaches to Political Science Methods,” Kalindi Vora explores how feminist science and technology studies (STS) can transform political science research cultures by embedding collaboration, accountability, and situated knowledge into social scientific practice. In “The Politics of Exclusion: Lessons from Transgender Participation in College Sports,” Libby Sharr “intersectional turn” in economic and social justice advocacy and activism. Combining evidence from in-depth interviews, data from three surveys of organizations, and content analyses of evidence from publicly available sources we focus on six broad policy areas (climate justice; immigration; anti-poverty and redistributive policy; health, disability, and reproductive justice; LGBTQ+ rights; and anti-violence and the carceral state) and examine whether, to what extent, and to what effect social and economic justice organizations and movements have, in fact, “intersectionalized” their advocacy, whether and how this “intersectionalization” varies across policy issues and movement sectors, and whether we can barriers to and opportunities for “intersectionally-responsible” advocacy and activism.

Title	Details
Race, Masculinity, and the Multiracial Right: The Manosphere’s Appeal to Men of Color	View Paper Details
Intimate Reactionary Publics: Women Influencers and the Digital Politics of Care on the Reactionary Right	View Paper Details
Regenerating Research Culture: Bringing the Lessons of Feminist STS Approaches to Political Science Methods	View Paper Details
The Politics of Exclusion: Lessons from Transgender Participation in College Sports	View Paper Details
Intersectional Advocacy and Activism in Time and Under Stress	View Paper Details