Topic
Feminist Alternatives
Exploring four decades of Russophone feminism, this project uncovers overlooked knowledge produced by activists, artists and thinkers, tracing grassroots movements through exile and challenges amid late socialist and post-socialist transformations.
Feminist Alternatives: Counter-Epistemologies and Knowledge Production in Late Soviet and Post-Soviet Russophone Feminist Thought (1979–2022)
This project explores the latest wave of the Russian independent women’s movement, focusing on the alternative political epistemologies developed by its participants. It concentrates on key issues addressed by independent feminist activists, artists and thinkers over the past four decades, including inequality, Russian colonial dynamics, history, war and political violence; citizenship, body and sexuality; activist structures, and transnational solidarity. The project aims to highlight the original feminist knowledge, that has been overlooked in Russian society and academia, as well as within contemporary feminist and critical theorising.
The project traces the re-emergence of grassroots feminism in late Soviet Russia and its transformation amid the collapse of the Soviet Union and the post-socialist transition. It specifically focuses on the continuity of the movement’s development despite multiple crises — such as the forced exile of activists, migratory processes and other disruptions — that made its steady progress difficult. The project draws on archival research, digital ethnography and oral history interviews. It incorporates participatory interdisciplinary methodologies, engaging scholars, activists, and artists in a collaborative process of knowledge production and dialogue.