Description
The RINGS Conference “Feminist Resistance to the Rise of Nationalism and Populism” was held 4–6 October 2017 at the University of Iceland. It was organized by the EDDA Research Center and RIKK – Institute for Gender, Equality and Difference in collaboration with the Gender Equality and Training Programme (GEST). RINGS, the International Research Association of Institutions of Advanced Gender Studies, is a global association of centres of advanced gender studies. The participating centres span Africa, Australia, the Caribbean, Europe and North America. Two previous conferences and assembly meetings have been held since the inauguration of RINGS in October 2014 at Örebro University: the first one in Prague in 2015 and the second in Cape Town in 2016.
The goal of the RINGS 2017 conference in Reykjavik was to share knowledge about feminist research and to engage, critically, with the current rise of nationalism and populism from transnational perspectives. RINGS promotes thinking about the gender dimensions of new political, social and cultural trends and addresses problems relating to scholarly collaboration, resulting from geographical and geopolitical divisions and social inequalities.
Feminism, Nationalism, and Populism
The recent revival of nationalist, populist right-wing politics poses a challenge to human rights, multicultural agendas, and the functioning of democratic systems. The electoral successes of populist parties and politicians owe much to their radical nationalist and anti-immigration stance, in particular, and political discontent, in general. Their varying degrees of xenophobia, misogyny, Islamophobia, and anti-establishment positions have not only set them apart from other rivals on the political Left and Right but also entered into the mainstream. This political condition raises questions about feminist resistance to new forms of political, cultural, social, and economic exclusion.
Goals of the 2017 conference:
- To share feminist research and criticism of the rise of nationalism and populism from transnational perspectives.
- To share research within RINGS through the framework of thinking about the gender dimensions of new political, social and cultural trends.
- To critically assess the limitations to scholarly collaboration due to geopolitical location and related inequalities.
For further information visit the conference programme.