230489 Feminist Movements in the Americas in the Face of Right-Wing Extremism (S) (SoSe 2020)

Gender is no side effect in the currently increasing right-wing populist and extremist discourse. Rather, gender aspects are crucial for the inner logics of right-wing politics. In this seminar, we will discuss the new research field ‘right-wing populism and gender’ which elaborates on how gender increasingly works in conservative and right-wing extremist discourse as a sort of arena, meta language, and “affective bridge” to address fears and topics related to demography, immigration politics, and the redistribution of resources, e.g. via ethno-sexist dynamics (projecting sexism and homophobia onto a “foreign” other) or anti-genderism (rejecting feminism, gender studies and LGBTQI activism as ideology and a threat to the traditional family and the (reproduction of) the nation).
Against the backdrop that intersectional feminist movements in many places provide the most strong and visible contestation to the right-wing trend, the seminar focuses particularly on the question how an intersectional approach attentive to the interrelations between sexism, racism and other axes of oppression could broaden current discourses on right-wing extremism. It scrutinizes the potential of the intersectional feminisms such as NiUnaMenos, NiUnaMás, the Women's March, 8M, Marielle Presente! etc. that are currently gainings strength (particularly in the Americas) to mobilize new and alternative forms of cohabitation, of conviviality and the social. Students are called to bring case studies and material of their own interest.