Stimulated by our conversations at the 2018 International Philosophy of Nursing Society Conference and our shared interests, the coauthors present an argument for augmenting the broader discussion of “missed care” with our synthesized concept called structural missingness. We take the problem of missed care to be largely grounded on a particular economic construction of the healthcare system within an era of what some are calling the Capitalocene, capturing the pervasive influence of capitalism on nature, humanity and the world order. Our (...) perspective is that of the United States, however, extrapolations can be made to the social and healthcare systems in other countries. We are concerned with the underlying conditions that structurally reify inequality and ultimately undermine nursing practice. To situate the discussion, we briefly review existing literature on the contextualization of missed care. We understand contemporary circumstances of missed care as a function of the neoliberalization of healthcare, including the idea of nursing as a commodity. From this, we discuss the implications of missed care, which forms the basis of our critique. Synthesizing the term “structural missingness, we locate a moral imperative in the professional and disciplinary commitments of nursing to consider who and what have been left out. This moral imperative for the nursing profession, along with other social and health related professions, underscores our obligation to be involved in uncovering inequities and conceptualizing upstream solutions for structural missingness. (shrink)

This study seeks to understand, in the context of intersectional theory, the roles of family members in nursing home care. The unique social locus at which each person sits is the result of the intersection of gender, status, ethnicity and class; it is situational, shifting with the context of every encounter. A content analysis of 15 qualitative interviews with relatives of nursing home residents in Sweden was used to gain a perspective on the relationships between relatives and residents, relatives and (...) the nursing home as an institution, and relatives and the nursing home staff. We sought to understand these relationships in terms of gendered notions of the family and the residents, which are handed down from generation to generation and thus condition who and how relatives should be involved in care, and the ways in which relationships change as care moves from home to nursing home. It requires knowledge and awareness that the nursing home culture is based on intersectional power structures in order for relatives to be involved in nursing home care in alternative and individual ways. (shrink)

Recent empirical work attempts to investigate how implicit biases target those facing intersectional oppression. This is welcome, since early work on implicit biases focused on single axes of discrimination, such as race, gender, or age. However, the success of such empirical work on how biases target those facing intersectional oppressions depends on adequate conceptualizations of intersectionality and empirical measures that are responsive to these conceptualizations. Surveying prominent recent empirical work, we identify failures in conceptualizations of intersectionality that inform the design (...) of empirical measures. These failures generate unsupported conclusions about the kinds of biases that those experiencing multiple oppressions face, and render proposed interventions to combat biases useless at best, harmful at worst. We also diagnose unwarranted assumptions about how stereotypes combine in complex concepts: first, that when “simple” social concepts combine the complex concepts inherit the associated stereotypes of their simpler constituent concepts; second that studies which focus on cognition about single social categories are investigating “simple” social concepts (cf. Goff and Khan 2013). We tease out recommendations to guide future investigations into biases that target those who experience multiple oppressions. (shrink)

Are men oppressed as men? The evidence given in support of affirmative responses to this question usually consists in examples of harms, limitations, or requirements masculinity imposes on men: men are expected to pay on dates, men must be breadwinners for their families, men can be drafted for war, and so forth. This article explicates three hypotheses that account for the harms, limitations, and requirements masculinity imposes on men and, drawing on the work of Alison Jaggar, seeks to show that (...) these hypotheses collectively are explanatorily superior to the hypothesis the men are oppressed as men. (shrink)

Answers to the question of immigrant admissions have been debated extensively by political philosophers since the 1980s. A wide variety of normative approaches to the question have been taken, but very nearly zero have been expressly feminist. Generalizing from Alison Jaggar's articulation of a feminist methodological approach to the political morality of abortion, this article proposes a feminist methodological approach to immigrant admissions. This article does not defend a substantive view on what policies states ought to adopt, but it does (...) describe several features of our social world that are salient for a feminist methodological approach to the assessment of the justice of states’ immigrant admissions policies. (shrink)

This paper defends a right to the justification of contract, with reciprocal and general reasons, and explores its main implications for the law of contract and its theory. It argues that the leading essentialist and other monist contract theories, offering blueprints for an ideal contract law based on the alleged ultimate value or essential characteristic of contract law, cannot justify the basic structure of contract law. Instead, it argues, a critical discourse theory of contract can contribute to the realisation of (...) the right to justification of contract by exposing patterns of contractual injustice, in particular exploitation and domination by contract, that contract law can and should prevent. (shrink)

Building on recent feminist scholarship on the complicity of feminist antiviolence movements in the build-up of mass incarceration, this essay analyzes the epistemic occupation of feminist antiviolence work by carceral logic, taking the Gender-Responsive Justice and Community Accountability movements as countervailing examples. Both strategies claim to be a feminist response to violence. Gender-Responsive Justice arises from feminist criminology and has genealogical roots in the American prison reformatory movement. Community Accountability stems from grassroots intersectional and decolonial feminisms that are fundamentally at (...) odds with the professionalization and state-centrism of the mainstream antiviolence movement. We argue that Gender-Responsive Justice is a form of carceral humanism that repackages carceral control as the caring provision of social services, while Community Accountability advances a radically creative abolitionist and decolonial project of an irreducibly epistemological order. (shrink)

Increasingly, transgender minors are seeking medical care such as puberty-suppressing or gender-affirming hormone therapies. Yet, whether these interventions should be performed at all is highly controversial. Some healthcare practitioners oppose irreversible interventions, considering it their duty to protect children from harm. Others view minors, like adults, as transgender individuals who must be protected from discrimination. The underlying ethical question is presented as a problem of priority. Is it primarily relevant that minors are involved? Or should decision makers focus on the (...) fact that they treat transgender individuals? The paper explores the relevance for medical practice. We provide results of an interview study with German healthcare professionals. We discuss the general question whether prioritization among different group memberships of the same person is ethically defensible. We conclude that priority conflicts between group memberships of the same person can be deceptive and should be addressed by an intersectional approach. Eventually, we discuss practical implications. (shrink)

AI technology is capturing the African imaginations as a gateway to progress and prosperity. There is a growing interest in AI by different actors across the continent including scientists, researchers, humanitarian and aid organizations, academic institutions, tech start-ups, and media organizations. Several African states are looking to adopt AI technology to capture economic growth and development opportunities. On the other hand, African researchers highlight the gap in regulatory frameworks and policies that govern the development of AI in the continent. They (...) argue that this could lead to AI technology exacerbating problems of inequalities and injustice in the continent. However, most of the literature on AI ethics is biased toward Euro-American perspectives and lack the understanding of how AI development is apprehended in the Global South, and particularly Africa. Drawing on the case study of the first African Master’s in Machine Intelligence program, this paper argues for looking beyond the question of ethics in AI and examining AI governance issues through the analytical lens of the raciality of computing and the political economy of technoscience to understand AI development in Africa. By doing so, this paper seeks a different theorization for AI ethics from the South that is based on lived experiences of those in the margins and avoids the framings of technological futures that simplistically pathologize or celebrate Africa. (shrink)

In this presidential address, I use the metaphor of “reclaiming my time” as a framework that highlights the ways black women are playing an essential role transforming workplaces, media, and politics in the current moment. I consider how black feminist thought provides a useful starting point for assessing these efforts, and I examine how black women’s leadership offers a blueprint for how other groups also can restructure social institutions in an era of increasing polarization and inequality.

This paper considers an area of research in clinical psychology that focuses on the resilience of members of marginalized groups who have experienced traumas directly related to their social identities. The paper describes these as social group-based traumas and outlines three effects of social group-based traumas that can make the experiences of them, as well as experiences of recovery following them, distinct from those involved in other kinds of traumas. In cases where resilience frameworks are useful for understanding such recoveries, (...) the paper proposes three methodological strategies for designing research to address the characteristics of social group-based trauma. (shrink)

A shift in popular discourse over the last few years makes it makes it tempting to think that the answer to the question whether racism is essentially systemic is yes. My argument, however, is that there are forms of racism—things that are properly counted as instances of racism—that are distinct from and independent of systemic racism. These include ideational racism, ideological racism, racism as antipathy, and racism as prejudice and bigotry. Systemic racism does exist and is not reducible to these (...) other forms of racism. It is arguably the form of racism that should be of most concern to us, but it is not the only form that racism takes. (shrink)

The conventional proper scientific self has an ethical obligation to strive to see everywhere in the universe from no particular location in that universe: he is to produce the view from nowhere. What different conceptions of the proper scientific self are created by the distinctive assumptions and research practices of social justice movements, such as feminism, anti-racism, and post-colonialism? Three such new ideals are: the multiple and conflicted knowing self; the researcher strategically located inside her research world; and the community (...) that knows. (shrink)

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has had the opportunity to address the sensitive matter of the wearing of the Islamic headscarf in the workplace in two preliminary rulings. The result of these decisions implies that the wearing of this veil at work is, in general, neither proscribed nor always justified as a legitimate expression of religious beliefs. However, the law studied and applied deals exclusively with discrimination in the workplace on religious grounds. Nonetheless, the Islamic headscarf (...) is only worn by (some) Muslim women (never by men). This article reviews the EU legislation and policy on equality, intersectionality and multiple discrimination to verify that gender mainstreaming does not reach the work of the Court. Only the inclusion of a feminist perspective to the application of justice, with a clear methodology, can guarantee that gender does not disappear in cases of complex discrimination. (shrink)

This paper extends Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) scholarship to focus on issues of sexual harassment and sexual violence. Despite a significant body of work on gender and CSR from a variety of feminist perspectives, long-standing evidence of sexual harassment and sexual violence in business, particularly in global value chains, and the rise of the #MeToo movement, there has been little scholarship focused specifically on these issues in the context of CSR. Our conceptual paper addresses this gap in the literature through (...) two key contributions. First, we extend the theoretical base of CSR scholarship by drawing upon and explicating radical feminist theory, a resource that has been underutilized in the field to date. This theoretical perspective is well placed to offer insights around the issues of sexual harassment and sexual violence, and to explain the centrality of these concerns to the gender equality agenda in business and in CSR. Second, building upon insights from radical feminism, and from research on CSR and human rights, we explicate a business and human rights approach to sexual harassment, sexual violence and CSR. We point to ways in which this approach might be more effective in addressing these issues than previously adopted strategies and suggest directions for future research arising from our analysis. (shrink)

Appeals to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission haunt most post-1990s institutional attempts to address historical injustice. Comparing Canada and South Africa, Nagy notes that “loose analogizing” has hampered the application of important lessons from the South African to the Canadian TRC—namely, the discovery that “narrow approaches to truth collude with superficial views of reconciliation that deny continuities of violence.” Taking up her important specification of the Canada-South Africa analogy, we expand Nagy’s recent findings by gendering the continuum of (...) settler colonial violence in both locations and by outlining the implications of these TRCs for Indigenous and Black women in particular. In both the Canadian attempt to grapple with the legacy of residential schools and the South African effort to deal with a history of apartheid, institutional approaches to truth have been both narrow and androcentric. The simultaneous historical bounding and social consolidation of Indigenous experiences of abuse and injustice has thus produced a “double settler denial.”. (shrink)

Efforts to promote equitable public policy with algorithms appear to be fundamentally constrained by the “impossibility of fairness” (an incompatibility between mathematical definitions of fairness). This technical limitation raises a central question about algorithmic fairness: How can computer scientists and policymakers support equitable policy reforms with algorithms? In this article, I argue that promoting justice with algorithms requires reforming the methodology of algorithmic fairness. First, I diagnose the problems of the current methodology for algorithmic fairness, which I call “formal algorithmic (...) fairness.” Because formal algorithmic fairness restricts analysis to isolated decision-making procedures, it leads to the impossibility of fairness and to models that exacerbate oppression despite appearing “fair.” Second, I draw on theories of substantive equality from law and philosophy to propose an alternative methodology, which I call “substantive algorithmic fairness.” Because substantive algorithmic fairness takes a more expansive scope of analysis, it enables an escape from the impossibility of fairness and provides a rigorous guide for alleviating injustice with algorithms. In sum, substantive algorithmic fairness presents a new direction for algorithmic fairness: away from formal mathematical models of “fair” decision-making and toward substantive evaluations of whether and how algorithms can promote justice in practice. (shrink)

Frantic warnings about the threat the Internet poses to our privacy are now a dime-a-dozen. Though gallons of ink have been spilled on the topic, it has largely gone unanalyzed from the perspective...

This article focuses on the articulations of migration and gender, from the vantage point of women whose feminist experiences have been both enriched and challenged by migration and vice versa. It presents the results of a qualitative research study of five Latin American women who migrated to Barcelona and felt close to feminisms. The author draws on feminist and postcolonial approaches to migration studies that highlight the active role women play in migratory processes as well as how intersectional variables of (...) ethnic origin, socioeconomic class, education and family contexts are articulated, configuring different power relations and resources in specific sociohistorical contexts. The results challenge widespread stereotypes about migrant women by revealing a rich diversity of profiles, motivations and migratory pathways, as well as how informants’ experiences of social activism across national borders have transformed their subject formation processes and re-positioned them as active subjects of political action. (shrink)

This article examines physical and linguistic sites through which women and words about women circulate along Latin America’s Interoceanic Road, running from the Brazilian to the Peruvian coast. I argue that the discourse on women circulates with specific linguistic-packaging, made and remade at different sites. In analyzing how these sites form ‘cartographies of communicability’, this article engages Marilena Chauí’s discussion of the ‘semiophor’ to refer to people and things that once pulled out of daily circulation, take on new meanings beyond (...) their material existence. By complicating the socially viable/acceptable identities offered/imposed upon these women – victims or voluntary agents, this article seeks to avoid reinscriptions of difference that “muzzle the subaltern”, advocating for a practice of ethnographic vigilance. (shrink)

La relación entre seres humanos y otros anymales (anymals) (Kemmerer, 2006) es, por definición, asimétrica. A lo largo de la historia se han esgrimido múltiples argumentos para justificar un supuesto excepcionalismo humano (excepcionalism), desde la atribución de derechos divinos a una mayor inteligencia, legitimando así un sistema de explotación denominado dominación (domination) (Manfredo et al. 2019). Las relaciones entre especies y cómo se conciben son un tema difícil. Hay muchos modos de enfocar las relaciones entre el humano y los anymales, (...) desde la adoración religiosa (vacas en la India) a la explotación (investigación biomédica). Además en Occidente surgen formas alternativas de ver y entender estas relaciones (por ejemplo, la relación con animales domésticos). La pertenencia a una u otra especie es un factor fundamental que influye en la posición que cada animal tiene en estas jerarquías asimétricas. Sin embargo, se deben considerar otros elementos relevantes, como los vínculos entre individuos, de la misma manera que el afecto por otras personas depende en líneas generales del tipo de vínculo que tengamos con ellas (por ejemplo, la relaciones familiares o de amistad). (shrink)

Nursing has evolved, yet media representation has arguably failed to keep up. This work explores why representation has been slow in accurately depicting nurses' responsibilities, impacts on public perceptions and professional identity. A critical realist review was employed as this method enables in-depth exploration into why something exists. A multidisciplinary approach was adopted, drawing from feminist, psychological and sociological theories to provide insightful understanding and recommendations. One main feminist lens has been implemented, using Laura Mulvey’s ‘Male-Gaze’ framework for content analysis (...) of three nurse-related advertisements to explore how the profession's female status influences representation, public perception and how this might impact nursing. Nurse representation has important real-world consequences. It is essential to improve unnecessary negative portrayals and contest ingrained stereotypes as there are costs to public opinion and nursing's self-identity. Nursing's female status has an impact within a male-dominated media industry, with a leisurely approach adopted toward changing representation. Media images become societally ingrained, this reiterates the significance of accurate/positive depictions. Social media is an instant method of communication with the public to combat stereotypes and maintain engagement to provide better understanding of what nurses do. (shrink)

To speak of democracy is often to speak less of a fact than of a hope. In his introduction to Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville admitted that ‘… in America I saw more than America; I sought the image of democracy itself, with its inclinations, its character, its prejudices and its passions, in order to learn what we have to fear or to hope from its progress’. De Tocqueville recognised that democracy's success would rely on its constant promotion, the (...) affirmation and revaluation of its terms and conditions, such that it sustains the investedness of its (voluntary) participants. This paper considers the work of Stanley Cavell as inheriting the tone of de Tocqueville's romantic will to democracy, particularly in the discovery of its analogous image in ‘remarriage comedy’. I look first at the ways in which popular pictures of (in this case, American) democracy on film sustain an expression of hope for a better set of relations amongst equal and consenting participants, an expression that is identified as romantic in nature. By contrast, I will also discuss how representations of democracy's reality on screen—pictures that sit outside comfortable generic expectations, and reveal those moments in which interest in democratic participation or values has ebbed or is dormant—have as much to tell us about democracy's character as more idealist expressions of what it might be or become. (shrink)

The article argues that in European public debates the Muslim Question is performed by and linked to the issues of Muslims' integration and recognition as political subjects. I suggest that, in order to defuse the performative negative effects of the Muslim Question on Muslims' democratic agency, we should address it without rendering them invisible in the public sphere and in enhancing their political agency. Drawing from an analysis of the Swiss case I show that integration because adjustment entails a depoliticization (...) and a normalization of Muslims' political agency. In this way, integration as a process acts as an alternative and as a way to empower Muslim political subjectivity and therefore the fairest way to tackle the undemocratic impact of the Muslim Question. (shrink)

El objetivo del artículo es exponer de forma crítica el giro interseccional en los estudios de género y la teoría feminista contemporánea. Se parte del análisis del proyecto teórico de K. Crenshaw y los debates que ha generado. Se analiza el desarrollo del discurso de la interseccionalidad. Posteriormente se abordaran las críticas que se han hecho desde el feminismo posestructuralista y el feminismo marxista. Se concluye que el giro interseccional no es ni una teoría ni una perspectiva ni un paradigma (...) teórico, sino un discurso, plural y diverso, sobre la realidad social. Se alerta de los riesgos y peligros de dicho discurso. (shrink)

Although intersectional analyses of gender have been widely adopted by feminist theorists in many disciplines, controversy remains over their character, limitations, and implications. I support intersectionality, cautioning against asking too much of it. It provides standards for the uses of methods or frameworks rather than theories of power, oppression, agency, or identity. I want feminist philosophers to incorporate intersectional analyses more fully into our work so that our theories can, in fact, have the pluralistic and inclusive character to which we (...) give lip service. To this end, I advocate an intersectional family resemblance strategy that does not create philosophical problems for feminists. I test my approach against María Lugones's argument in “Heterosexualism and the Colonial/Modern Gender System” (Lugones 2007) to determine, in particular, whether we can successfully resist a move to create multiple genders for women. If we can successfully resist this move, then we can answer the objection that intersectionality fragments women both theoretically and politically. I also argue that my approach avoids Lugones's critique of forms of intersectionality that fall within “the logic of purity.”. (shrink)

This article reexamines the evidence for the relationships between the Vestal virgins and their natal kin from the second century BC to the third century ad. It suggests that the bond between these priestesses and their families remained strong throughout this period and that, as a consequence, interpretations of the Vestals' position within Roman society that emphasize the severing of agnatic ties through their removal from patria potestas may be misguided. When placed in the broader social and legal context, the (...) ritual “capture” of these priestesses is shown to be a necessary feature of their priestly identity, which only marked the Vestals as extraordinary because of the unique intersection of religious and gender categories that characterized their office. Finally, the implications of these findings for the interpretation of Vestal virginity are discussed. (shrink)

Though Indigenous women in Mexico have traditionally exhibited some of the highest levels of maternal mortality in the country—a fact that some authors have argued was an important reason to explain the EZLN uprising in 1994—there is some evidence that the rate of maternal mortality has fallen in Zapatista communities in the Chiapas Highlands in the last two decades, and that other health indicators have improved. In this article, we offer an account of the modest success that Zapatista communities have (...) achieved in improving their health levels. In particular, we argue that Zapatista women have implicitly used a form of feminist standpoint theory to diagnose the epistemic injustice to which they have been traditionally subjected and to develop an epistemology of resistance that is manifested in actions such as becoming health promoters in their communities. We also argue that this epistemology of resistance is partially responsible for the improvement of health levels in their communities. Finally, on the basis of our discussion of the Zapatista case, we suggest that standpoint theory could play an important role in other healthcare settings involving oppressed minorities. (shrink)

“Women and the Law in Irigarayan Theory” by Gail Schwab is a reading of French feminist philosopher Luce Irigaray's writings on law together with texts of American feminist jurisprudence. The first part of the article summarizes many of the conflicts surrounding the concept of equality in American feminist legal thought and attempts to move beyond them with the Irigarayan principle of equivalence or equivalent rights. The second part of the article deals more generally with the symbolic changes that will be (...) necessary in order to change the law, and with the cultural evolution that changes in the law can bring about, and more specifically with two areas of Irigarayan legal theory that are central to cultural change and evolution: the concept of female identity or virginity, and the relationship to the mother. In the conclusion, a new utopian vision of what law might be‐the cultural mediation for an evolved intersubjectivity‐is developed through Irigaray's most recent texts. (shrink)

This article examines religious and gendered identities through an ethnographic study of unmarried evangelical Christian women in London. Moving away from an approach that shows that women feel empowered through their conservative, male-dominated religious environment, or else they find it constraining and leave the church, this article investigates the experiences of women who feel limited by their church, and still remain embedded in their Christian environment. The article begins by exploring the normative figure of the ideal Christian woman operative in (...) this context. It then describes the experiences of women who do not fit the norm, outlining the affective toll they suffer through marginality. Finally, the article examines how some women rely on hope in order to change the normative framework within their church. This article argues that leaving and staying are not static categories; instead evangelical women, frustrated with their marginal positions, revealed a continuum of investment underlain by resilience and hope. (shrink)

Digital health and welfare technologies and artificial intelligence are proposed to revolutionise healthcare systems around the world by enabling new models of care. Digital health and welfare technologies enable remote monitoring and treatments, and artificial intelligence is proposed as a means of prediction instead of reaction to individuals’ health and as an enabler of proactive care and rehabilitation. The digital transformation not only affects hospital and primary care but also how the community meets older people's needs. Community care is often (...) provided by informal and formal care‐givers, most of whom are women. Gender equality is at the heart of many national strategies, but do all genders have equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities when it comes to community care and its digital transformation? The digital transformation of community care is entangled with how care is provided to older people and the working conditions of community‐care professionals. Current and, even more so, future community‐care systems are and will be partly constituted by networks of technological artefacts. These health and welfare technological artefacts and the discourse surrounding them mediate and constitute social relations and community care. This article looks into how health and welfare technology and artificial intelligence‐based devices and systems mediate and constitute gender relations in community care and presents an argument for reflexivity, embodiment, pluralism, participation and ecology as an alternative strategy to treating community care as one‐size‐fit‐all and being blind to gender‐related issues. (shrink)

The article draws on critiques in political theory and morality to argue that womanism, a worldview rooted in Black women's lives and history, provides an alternative conceptual framework to prevailing Eurocentric thinking, for promoting socially just institutions of higher education. Presupposing a positioned, encultured, and embodied account of identity, womanism’s social change perspective holds transformative promise. It foregrounds Black women’s penchant for reaching solutions that promote communal balance, affirm one’s humanity and attend to the spiritual dimension (Phillips, 2006 Phillips, L. (...) (Ed.). (2006). The womanist reader. Routledge.[Crossref], [Google Scholar]). Directed first towards scholars of color, fostering inclusivity, communalist values and acknowledged intersectionality offers an ethic of the embodied self. As a corollary, it argues for a universal that recommends at least two guiding principles for a pedagogical philosophy. It is, first oriented towards a love of self and second towards placing all disciplines within a cultural-historical context. In the first claim, there is potential for nothing less than suspending the symbolic and ontological violence to one’s sense of belonging in academia. In the second claim, such an understanding can position scholars of color to actively re-narrate their fields. As illustrations, we focus on three academic fields of education, theology in higher education, and criminal justice. (shrink)

In this paper I offer the term “potato ethics” to describe a particular professional rural health sensibility. I contrast this attitude with the sensibility behind urban professional ethics, which often focus on the narrow doctor–patient treatment relationship. The phrase appropriates a Swedish metaphor, the image of the potato as a humble side dish: plain, useful, versatile, and compatible with any main course. Potato ethics involves making oneself useful, being pragmatic, choosing to be like an invisible elf who prevents discontinuity rather (...) than a more visible observer of formal rules and assigned tasks. It also includes actively taking part in everyday disaster-prevention and fully recognizing the rural context as a vulnerable space. This intersectional argument, which emphasizes the ongoing, holistic responsibility of those involved in rural communities, draws on work from the domains of care ethics, relational ethics, pragmatic psychology, feminist ethics of embodiment, social location theory, and reflections on geographical narcissism. (shrink)

Seeking to capture the multi-layered, contradictory, nature of subjectivities and social positions through a framework which insists upon the complex, dynamic nature of the social, intersectionality feminism has inspired Marxist-Feminists to push the social-reproduction feminism paradigm beyond a narrow preoccupation with gender/class relations. Yet even its most politically radical articulations stop short of fully theorising the integrative logic they espouse. This article explores the roots of this under-theorisation, and suggests that a more fully integrative ontology informs certain formulations of social-reproduction (...) feminism. In understanding the social as constituted by practical human activity whose object (the social and natural world) is organised capitalistically, social-reproduction feminism highlights thedialecticalrelationship between the capitalist whole and its differentiated parts. The challenge for Marxist-Feminism is to embrace this dialectical approach while building on the insights of intersectionality feminism to more convincingly capture the unity of a complex, diverse social whole. (shrink)

On June 29, 2019, Carola Rackete docked the rescue ship Sea-Watch 3 on the Sicilian island of Lampedusa, in defiance of a ban imposed by Italy's Interior Minister Matteo Salvini. The migrants rescued by the Sea-Watch 3 had been blocked at sea for the previous two weeks, making it to international headlines and sparking a heated debate around sovereignty and humanitarianism in the face of the European migration crisis. On her arrival, Rackete was arrested for refusing to obey a military (...) vessel and aiding illegal immigration.This paper investigates social media and international news discourses around the Sea-Watch 3 docking, to be regarded as a critical incident capable of catalysing attention and generating a significant media resonance. Results show how both social and traditional media contributed to the proliferation of misogynous attacks against Captain Rackete, at the intersection between right-wing populist discourses of Italian ‘sovranism’ and European anti-immigrationism. By triangulating the role of the media, intersectional hostility and populist ideology, this paper sheds light on how these three factors feed into each other in the discursive construction of the ‘Fortress Europe’ of present times. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to offer a reparative framework for current feminist approaches, most of which seek to inhabit rather than assimilate previous forms of inclusivity or intersectionality, by vindicating the pioneering role of past feminisms. For this purpose, I will stick to a double-edged methodological tool that has been an object of dispute in feminist and literary studies for the last decades, namely, critique and postcritique, two concepts that could be said to bear witness to old (...) and new ways of doing feminism. My aim is not to dismiss recent feminist work but to render visible forgotten critiques that have been an essential heritage of feminism. To acknowledge such debts is part of the reparative reading I present here, for I hold that the desire for deep knowledge is accretive and demands a closer and more respectful attention to past practices and theoretical positions. (shrink)

StyleLikeU is a hugely successful online social media platform that presents itself as a social justice movement related to body acceptance. Presenting moving personal stories, it offers a site for what it calls ‘diverse individuals’ to share their experiences as part of promoting individual self-acceptance in the face of a world that prioritizes one kind of body over another, which take the form of ableism, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ageism, sizeism and prejudice against disfigurement. Drawing out the discursive script carried (...) across the platform, we show how, beneath the rhetoric of progressiveness, social justice becomes a kind of personal therapy, related to empowerment and transformation, which erases actual differences in personal circumstances and the very forces of injustice. We place StyleLikeU into broader scholarly concerns about the neoliberal colonization of identity politics, diversity and intersectionality in institutions and in branding, drawing attention to how this can form one part of what are now presented as social justice movements. (shrink)