A World in Revolution is an online feminist conference bringing together academics, artists, activists and organisers to think through ongoing social and political uprisings the world over through an anti-racist and anti-colonial feminist standpoint.
Grassroots protests and transnational solidarity initiatives against rising authoritarianism, fascism, populisms and state violence have seen a surge in the past years. From Iran, Colombia, the US, Algeria to Chile, Hong Kong, Kashmir, Bolivia, Palestine and India, among other complex political contexts, people have come together to resist ongoing coloniality, racial and extractive capitalism and exclusionary nationalist imaginaries that undergird state policies. In the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic these movements have only intensified.
People across rural and urban areas, students, workers and occupied communities remain at the forefront of these protests and are collectivising across national borders to challenge the global rise of the Right. Likewise, many activists groups in their diasporas have formed transnational solidarity collectives that transcend geographical limits. In A World in Revolution we aim to critically think through what it might mean to engage with this generative political moment from a transnational, anti-colonial and anti-racist feminist standpoint. When we envisioned this conference in the winter of 2019, many of us were located away from our volatile home contexts, which pushed us to draw on feminist praxis to make sense of these movements. This conundrum, we believe, has only been magnified in the COVID-19 pandemic with closed borders and differentiated vulnerabilities of race, class, disability, caste, gender and sexuality.
Acknowledging the volatility of the worlds we inhabit and that inhabit us, we want to move beyond the ‘certainty’ of fully knowing the what and how, rather approach the ongoing uprisings out of feminist curiosity grounded in a critical politics of location. What then might it mean to centre feminist sensibility in thinking through these unfolding events? In what ways can feminist analysis allow us to come together despite and through our differences?
After opening our Call for Proposals earlier this year, we received over 150 promising proposals on social movements and the urgency of forging planetary solidarity. Remaining mindful of the various forms of access limitations exacerbated by the online format, we have decided to put together a two-day conference schedule:
Day 1: June 10, 2021 Conference Day with six panel presentations and keynote.
Day 2: June 11, 2021 Workshops Day with three participatory workshops.
A World in Revolution is committed to an inclusive feminist politics that aims to build a safe space for participants to share their visions, thoughts and emotions on ongoing conflict-related issues. Productive dialogue and passionate engagements are stimulated on the basis of care and genuine respect towards our differences, agreements and/or contradictions. We believe that it is precisely in moments like this, when disagreement must be acknowledged and respectfully discussed in order to envision alternative political and social imaginaries that might bring us together.
This conference is co-hosted by LSE Department of Gender Studies and LSE Middle East Centre.
Visit the website to learn about the full programme of events and find out about our speakers.
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