Women's human rights in Russia: outmoded battlegrounds, or new sites of contentious politics?

This article draws on three pieces of qualitative research conducted with women in provincial Russia over the last 10 years. The first section analyses women's discussions of their everyday rights claims and their engagement in “consentful” forms of contention. The second section uses the Pussy Riot case as an example of women's human rights activism coded as “contentious”. Finally, the article highlights the blurred boundaries between contentious and consentful contention that can occur when women engage in online spaces. The article suggests a spectrum of contentious politics for women's rights claims that vary depending on the political opportunity structures available

Are You With Us? : A Study of the Hoosier Suffrage Movement, 1844-1920

Are You With Us? challenges longstanding assumptions about Hoosier women\u27s political activism by examining participation within the state suffrage movement. Indiana women\u27s history- and especially this topic- is largely overlooked by historians. Existing scholarship on this subject is limited and out-dated; moreover, such research concludes that Hoosier women were ladylike reformers. That is, they were respectable, conservative, and did not desire too much public attention. Because of this, one might think that Hoosier women avoided the campaign for suffrage; yet, my archival research has shown that many women in Indiana were active and dedicated participants. In addition, there were numerous suffragists who were not ladylike reformers. Instead, they were radical, African-American, and from the working class or rural areas. My project highlights the diversity of the Hoosier suffrage movement while simultaneously expanding the narrow field of Indiana women\u27s history

Migrant African women: tales of agency and belonging

This paper explores issues of belonging and agency among asylum seekers and refugee women of African origin in the UK. It discusses the ways these women engendered resistance in their everyday life to destitution, lack of cultural recognition, and gender inequality through the foundation of their own non-governmental organization, African Women’s Empowerment Forum, AWEF, a collective ‘home’ space. The focus of this account is on migrant women’s agency and self-determination for the exercise of choice to be active actors in society. It points to what might be an important phenomenon on how local grassroots movements are challenging the invisibility of asylum seekers’ and refugees’ lives and expanding the notion of politics to embrace a wider notion of community politics with solidarity. AWEF is the embodiment of a social space that resonates the ‘in-between’ experience of migrant life providing stability to the women members regarding political and community identification

Women in Land Struggles: The Implications of Female Activism and Emotional Resistance for Gender Equity

Despite deeply engrained images of female domesticity and conventional gender norms, women are increasingly joining land struggles in Cambodia. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, my findings suggest that land rights activism in Cambodia has undergone a gendered re-framing process. Reasoning that women tend to use non-violent means of contestation and are less prone to violent responses from security personnel, nongovernmental organizations push women affected by land grabs and eviction to the frontline of protests. Moreover, female activists are encouraged to publicly display emotions such as sorrow and pain, in sharp contrast with the notion of feminine modesty. I critically question the women-to-the-front strategy and, drawing on Sara Ahmed's politics of emotions, show the adverse risks for female activists. Following that, I argue that the instrumentalization of female bodies and emotions in land rights protests perpetuates gender disparities instead of strengthening female agency in Cambodian society or opening up political space for women.In Kambodscha sind Aktivistinnen trotz tief verwurzelter Geschlechternormen und Vorstellungen von weiblicher Häuslichkeit zunehmend an Kämpfen um Land beteiligt. Mit der Begründung, dass Frauen eher zu Gewaltfreiheit tendierten und zugleich weniger Gewalt durch Sicherheitskräfte erführen, drängen Nichtregierungsorganisationen von Vertreibung und Landraub betroffene Frauen in die erste Reihe von Protesten. Die Ergebnisse meiner ethnografischen Feldforschung zeigen zugleich, dass Aktivistinnen dazu angehalten werden Emotionen, wie den erfahrenen Schmerz, öffentlich zum Ausdruck zu bringen. Dies steht im scharfen Kontrast zum vorherrschenden kulturellen Kodex, der Frauen zu Bescheidenheit und Zurückhaltung anhält. Ich hinterfrage die Neuausrichtung der Kämpfe um Land daher kritisch und zeige unter Bezugnahme auf Sara Ahmeds Konzept der Politik der Emotionen, mit welchen Risiken die Feminisierung von Landrechtskämpfen für kambodschanische Aktivistinnen verbunden ist. Ich argumentiere zudem, dass die Instrumentalisierung weiblicher Körper und Emotionen in Landrechtsprotesten Geschlechterdisparitäten in Kambodscha perpetuiert, statt die Stellung von Frauen und ihre politische Handlungsmacht in der Gesellschaft zu stärke

Intersectionality queer studies and hybridity: methodological frameworks for social research

This article seeks to draw links between intersectionality and queer studies as epistemological strands by examining their common methodological tasks and by tracing some similar difficulties of translating theory into research methods. Intersectionality is the systematic study of the ways in which differences such as race, gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity and other sociopolitical and cultural identities interrelate. Queer theory, when applied as a distinct methodological approach to the study of gender and sexuality, has sought to denaturalise categories of analysis and make normativity visible. By examining existing research projects framed as 'queer' alongside ones that use intersectionality, I consider the importance of positionality in research accounts. I revisit Judith Halberstam's (1998) 'Female Masculinity' and Gloria Anzaldua's (1987) 'Borderlands' and discuss the tension between the act of naming and the critical strategical adoption of categorical thinking. Finally, I suggest hybridity as one possible complementary methodological approach to those of intersectionality and queer studies. Hybridity can facilitate an understanding of shifting textual and material borders and can operate as a creative and political mode of destabilising not only complex social locations, but also research frameworks