International Feminist Journal of Politics

2023 conference program

 INTERNATIONAL FEMINIST JOURNAL OF POLITICS AND FLACSO-ECUADOR

In-person conference / Keynote sessions will be livestreamed

QUITO, ECUADOR, SEPTEMBER 7-8, 2023

Constructing Transnational Feminist Resistances in Times of ‘Crises’

We invite participants to this in-person conference, Constructing Transnational Feminist Resistances in Times of ‘Crises,’ co-convened by International Feminist Journal of Politics and the Sociology and Gender Studies Department at the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO-Ecuador).

Feminisms – like other forms of knowledge production and social movements – emerge and are situated in nationalist, colonialist, and imperialist contexts, even as they resist epistemic and geopolitical hegemonies. In this conference, we continue with IFJP’s efforts to decolonize Northern and Anglophone hegemonies in feminist IR. Convened in Quito, Ecuador, the 2023 conference centers “Latin America” as a region and imaginary that offers an important anchoring for global feminist conversations to move beyond the current hold on knowledge of the Global North and West. In particular, this conference centers seeks to showcase Latin America – and more broadly, the Americas – as an historical, colonialist imaginary and as a site of ongoing resistances to neocolonial, imperialist hegemonies, globally and within the region itself. In proposing that our epistemic point of departure begin in the Global South, this conference serves as a space to think through the simultaneous local and transnational dimensions of feminist politics that respond to various forms of global power, coloniality, and empire.

Some of the questions animating this conference include: How have feminists and other political actors in the region and elsewhere framed their struggles for sovereignty and freedom? What kind of connections, encounters, and dissents can we establish between feminists struggles and other forms of social protests, social movements, and spontaneous mobilizations that have emerged across the globe? How and why have we witnessed a recent re-emergence of not only more organized social movements but also various forms of conmociones, or spontaneous mobilizations, across the globe that illustrate widespread discontent across social sectors about a host of issues including: authoritarian practices, extractivist state development, racism and anti-indigenous sentiments, abortion rights, anti-feminist and anti-LGBTQI+ campaigns, and gender-based violence? How have ideas about, for example, gender and women’s rights, “travelled” (or not) across political, economic, cultural, and linguistic borders, including through South-South networks? What are the knots and/or enclosures that happen through or despite transnationalism and border-crossing, and how do we better attend to liminality that can be so generative for dislodging barriers to political imagination and solidarity?

Aims and themes

In centering resistances – including organized protests, spontaneous interventions, and some of the intellectual work to decolonize knowledge production and educational systems in the region – this conference aims to focus on a range of creative feminist responses and ways of rethinking Latin America as a region and imaginary and center these conversations within global feminist politics. Possible subthemes include but are not limited to the following:

Transnational Feminist Theories and Practices

  • methods and theories that work with transnational feminist analytics

  • transnational feminisms and intersectionality: convergences, divergences

  • empires, old and new

  • South-South relations and internationalisms

  • uninationalisms, plurinationalisms, transnationalisms

Feminist Politics, Praxis, and Policy

  • resistances to new forms of authoritarianisms

  • scales and assemblages of resistance: local, national, regional

  • the body, embodiment, and violences

  • resistances to heteropatriarchies, coloniality, xenophobia, racism and racialization

  • feminist policy frameworks in transnational/global perspective

  • (trans)feminist perspectives on borders, migration, displacement, (im)mobilities

Social Inequalities and Intersectionality

  • intersectional social movements, policies, institutions, practices

  • multicultural neoliberalism and/or neoliberal multiculturalism

  • queer/cuir/transfeminisms, epistemes, movements

  • racialization, racial hierarchies, indigeneity, whiteness

  • resistance to exploitation, global value chains, extractivism

Conference information

Format

This year’s conference is primarily an in-person conference – with livestreamed keynote sessions – in Quito, Ecuador hosted by the Sociology and Gender Studies Department at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, or FLACSO-Ecuador). In a few cases, we may be able to Zoom in a conference speaker for their session but unfortunately we cannot offer this hybrid format across all sessions. Keynote sessions will be livestreamed and there will be the opportunity for online participation during those sessions.

Registration information

The final program is available here. All presenters will have to register by August 24, 2023 at the latest to remain in the program. Conference registration will remain open for the duration of the conference for non-presenting participants.

If you need a travel stipend and have expressed this need in your submission, we will be in touch by August 27 for those who have been selected for funding. Please note that we are not able to fund the full cost of international travel and the stipend is likely to only help offset your expenses. If you do not hear from us, this is because we only have limited funds. If you need a stipend but have not expressed this need during submission, please email Samira Moaddeli.

Registration fee (updated)

The registration fee bands, including the fee waiver is administered as an honesty system. Please select the appropriate band of fee for your circumstance. Please register here.

  • -125 USD fully employed academic based in the Global North

  • -50 USD presenting students based in the Global North / Under-employed faculty or other professionals from the community in the Global North / fully employed academics and other professionals based in the Global South (outside Ecuador)

  • -0 for those who plan to virtually attend the livestreamed plenary sessions only

  • -0 for Ecuador-based presenters and non-presenters

  • -0 fee waiver

  • Optional: Support a fellow scholar. We are accepting an open amount donation to make the conference as widely accessible and equitable.

Visa requirements

Most citizens do not require visas to enter Ecuador as a tourist. Typically, visitors who do not require a visa in advance receive a 90-day tourist visa upon arrival. Please check the Ecuadorian government website and the website of the country from which you carry a passport for current visa policies.

Ecuadorian Ministry of Foreign Relations Visa Information (Spanish only)

About our conference host

The Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences, or Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO) emerged in 1956 and currently has offices in 18 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. In Ecuador, FLACSO was established in 1974 and is currently a national and regional benchmark for research and postgraduate education in the social sciences. Its Master’s program in Gender Studies, which is housed in the Department of Sociology and Gender Studies, has been dedicated to the production, reflection and transmission of knowledge on gender inequalities in Latin American societies and its manifestations in institutions, practices and social identities for more than 25 years.

Transportation (Arriving by Air)

Please plan to fly into the Quito Mariscal Sucre International Airport (UIO). Taxis are available at the airport. We suggest you look for the taxi stand rather than accept a ride from solicitors in the airport. Alternatively, you can pre-arrange transfers through your hotel, which is recommended, or through one of the following websites:

Uber is commonly used within Quito but it tends to be more expensive to take Uber from the airport to the city than a regular taxi.

Accommodations

We recommend that you book your accommodation directly with one of the following hotels. You may also want to check rates for these hotels on a third-party website such as Expedia.com, Hotels.com, Booking.com, Kayak, or the equivalent.

Currency

The currency in Ecuador is the US dollar and the rates above are based on the market and are therefore subject to fluctuation. Please note that often businesses and people will not have change, so if possible carry some small bills and coins with you for cash transactions.

Letter of Invitation

If you need a letter of invitation confirming acceptance on the program for visa and other official purposes, please email Samira Moaddeli and we will make it available to you as quickly as possible.

Tourism information

Organizing Committee

  • Amy Lind, University of Cincinnati

  • Gioconda Herrera, FLACSO-Ecuador

  • Natália Félix de Souza, Pontificia Universidade Católica de São Paulo

  • Elisabeth Prügl, Geneva Graduate Institute

  • Virginia Villamediana, FLACSO-Ecuador

  • Samira Moaddeli, University of Cincinnati

Further questions? For inquiries regarding the conference, for Ecuador-based questions, please email Virginia Villamediana, and for the rest, please email Samira Moaddeli.