Feminist strategies for change: activist debate
Interface journal call for contributions (extended deadline – September 1st 2011)

In the heyday of the second women’s movement, feminist utopias and strategies for a world without patriarchy were the stuff of lively debate and defined different kinds of feminist politics and theory. In the grey light of 2011 – the darkness before the dawn? – is it still possible to imagine a post-patriarchal society? Can we imagine what kinds of feminist revolution or transformation might make this possible? And what sorts of everyday collective practice can social movements engage in to bring such a future closer?

Interface: a journal for and about social movements < +http://interfacejournal.net> is produced by activists with an eye to theory and social movement researchers as a practitioner journal for people engaged in or studying the practice of social movement, and aiming to stimulate discussion and learning between people in different regions and continents, different
political situations and theoretical traditions, and different movement contexts. After issues on movement knowledge, civil society, revolutions, activist media and repression, we are now working on an issue devoted to feminism, women’s movements and women in movement.

Sara Motta is curating a special section within this issue on feminist strategies for change, open to contributions from feminist groups, whether they are written collectively or individually. These pieces will not be peer-reviewed (unless the authors request it) but will be worked on directly with the editor. We hope that this section will be part of a more general revival of feminist strategising, thinking beyond the everyday crises to which we still need to respond and articulating broader perspectives
for change which make a world without patriarchy thinkable and – hopefully – possible. Below is the original call for this section:

“Throughout the 1990s feminist politics became increasingly professionalised and arguably de-politicised. Yet neoliberal globalisation has witnessed a feminisation of poverty and sexualisation of public space. The result is a paradoxical situation of defeats and de-politicisation combined with new forms of re-politicisation. This special section seeks to engage with attempts to re-articulate feminist politics in the current conjuncture, be they liberal, radical, socialist or anarchist in character or taking new forms. Arguably many of these re-articulations are simultaneously localised and transnationalised, articulating a praxis that is often mis-recognised and mis-represented by social movement scholarship.

The questions we hope will be considered in this section include:

– What does feminist strategy mean today?
– What are the challenges and limitations of feminist strategising in the current moment?
– How do contemporary feminist activists and women?s movements draw on the practices and experiences of earlier movements?
– Where do they see themselves in terms of movement achievements to date and the road still to be travelled?
– What barriers and possibilities for feminist struggle has neoliberalism created?
– Does the decline of neo-liberalism create openings for feminists?
– And what movements today could be allies for a transition out of patriarchy?

We also invite feminist groups, communities and movements to frame their own questions and problematics for this section.”

The extended deadline for this section is September 1st, 2011. If you are interested in contributing to this section, please contact Sara Motta at .

The full call for papers (“Feminism, women’s movements and women in movement”) can be found at http://www.interfacejournal.net/archives/call-for-papers/. The other editors for this issue are Catherine Eschle, Cristina Flesher Fominaya and Laurence Cox.