Formations of Feminist Strike: Connecting Diverse Practices, Contexts and Geographies

TY - JOUR

T1 - Formations of Feminist Strike

T2 - Connecting Diverse Practices, Contexts and Geographies

AU - Thomas, Kylie

AU - Robbe, Ksenia

AU - Neuman-Stanivukovic, Senka

N1 - No DOI

PY - 2023

Y1 - 2023

N2 - This introduction to the special issue on Feminist Strike takes up the question of what remains marginalized and overlooked within dominant discourses on contemporary feminist protests. Drawing on experiences of andapproaches to feminist refusal that involve questions of labour, we propose the ways in which conceptualizations offeminist strike can be employed as a lens to build a conversation between different practices, scales, and geographies,particularly across postcolonial and postsocialist contexts. Through a reading of Aliki Saragas’s film Strike a Rock (2017) about the women living around the Marikana miners’ settlement in the aftermath of a major strike and massacre, we explore how notions of feminist strike can be expanded by situating Black women’s struggles in South Africa within a long tradition of women’s resistance and showing how political resistance is bound to questions of reproductive work. To understand the intersection of postsocialist, post-conflict, and (pre-)Europeanization transformations, we consider the case of a large-scale strike and public demonstrations against the bankruptcy of the Croatian shipyard Uljanik that took place in 2018 and 2019. Our perspectives on the Marikana and the Uljanik strikes showhow women in both places practise a politics of refusal and resistance against ruination, violence, and defeat. In thelast section, we summarize the contents of the articles that comprise the special issue.

AB - This introduction to the special issue on Feminist Strike takes up the question of what remains marginalized and overlooked within dominant discourses on contemporary feminist protests. Drawing on experiences of andapproaches to feminist refusal that involve questions of labour, we propose the ways in which conceptualizations offeminist strike can be employed as a lens to build a conversation between different practices, scales, and geographies,particularly across postcolonial and postsocialist contexts. Through a reading of Aliki Saragas’s film Strike a Rock (2017) about the women living around the Marikana miners’ settlement in the aftermath of a major strike and massacre, we explore how notions of feminist strike can be expanded by situating Black women’s struggles in South Africa within a long tradition of women’s resistance and showing how political resistance is bound to questions of reproductive work. To understand the intersection of postsocialist, post-conflict, and (pre-)Europeanization transformations, we consider the case of a large-scale strike and public demonstrations against the bankruptcy of the Croatian shipyard Uljanik that took place in 2018 and 2019. Our perspectives on the Marikana and the Uljanik strikes showhow women in both places practise a politics of refusal and resistance against ruination, violence, and defeat. In thelast section, we summarize the contents of the articles that comprise the special issue.

KW - Strikes

KW - Feminism

KW - Labour history

KW - State Violence

KW - Gender

M3 - Article

SN - 0702-7818

VL - 44

SP - 1

EP - 13

JO - Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture, and Social Justice

JF - Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture, and Social Justice

IS - 2

ER -