The rise of various right-wing movements globally not only threatens hard-won rights, but also challenges the political categories from which we think. In this context, does it make sense to criticize the liberal notion of citizenship and the figure of the rights-bearing subject? Should we not, perhaps, entrench ourselves in these notions while reactionary discourses on the rise appeal to exclusionary affiliations—based on nation, family, or essentialized identity? What are the risks of raising the limits of this model—its colonial, androcentric, and Eurocentric frameworks—in a context of political reaction such as the one we are experiencing? What would be the risks of not pointing them out?
In this paper, I will analyze the limitations of liberal citizenship as a framework for social transformation in the current context. At the same time, I will draw on contributions from feminisms in the global South and contemporary collective practices that experiment with situated, relational, and plural citizenships. The challenge is to imagine feminist horizons capable of challenging the right wing on the very meaning of political community and opening paths toward forms of the common beyond the frameworks inherited from modernity.
