In this blog, Anandita Ghosh introduces G&D’s special issue on ‘Revisiting feminist advocacy’
Feminist advocacy has led to the achievement of many important legal and policy gains for gender justice. Additionally, it has changed the ways in which gender justice programmes are shaped, leading to impactful changes at the grassroots level. Nonetheless, feminist advocacy is limited and restricted not only by challenges in resourcing but also by structural inequities such as racial and gender hierarchies, which continue to constrain voices as well as funding and development strategies. In addition to histories of colonialism and capitalism, neoliberal development continues to shape advocacy efforts. More recently, conservative forces and anti-gender movements have been gaining ground globally. Against this backdrop, it is essential that we acknowledge and understand the ways in which feminist advocates are negotiating these challenges. Building intersectional solidarities, understanding cultural, local, and regional contexts, and challenging dominant policy assumptions with intersectional and decolonial approaches are critical to meet this moment.
This Issue aims to explore the different ways in which feminist advocacy works to promote gender equality, defend people’s rights, and amplify the voices of communities that have long been marginalised. It also looks at how feminist and decolonial perspectives can challenge traditional forms of advocacy, which are often shaped, funded, and controlled by the political interests and priorities of the global North.
This special issue has been guest edited by Awino Okech and Sohela Nazneen. The articles cover diverse geographies and contexts, including Brazil, Chile, India, Türkiye, South Sudan, Vanuatu, the Great Lakes region in Africa, the LAC region and Europe, as well as countries with historical and cultural diasporic relations, such as India and the Caribbean. Contributors include academics, early-career researchers, and activists practising feminist advocacy across physical and digital spaces and geographies.
Two key themes emerge from the contributions in this issue:
The politics and opportunities that emerge in feminist advocacy practice
Contributions in this issue show how women’s groups and organisations are working at local, regional, and international levels to promote gender equality. They do so while also dealing with political, financial, and geopolitical challenges.
Margaret LoWilla and Munyaradzi Mapfumo explore how the South Sudan Women’s Coalition for Peace used lobbying, media campaigns, public outreach, and cross-border collaboration to secure a place in elite-dominated peace negotiations. They discuss the strategies used, the challenges that emerged, and the hybrid forms of feminist advocacy deployed. Nicole Nyangolo and Julie Théroux-Séguin similarly examine the strategies that Concertation des Collectifs des Associations Féminines de la région des Grands Lacs (COCAFEM/GL) uses to bring women’s groups together across national borders and sustain feminist advocacy, in the conflict-affected Great Lakes region. Stephanie Oula and Sia Nowrojee examine 50 years of feminist advocacy at the United Nations, showing how feminist advocates have helped advance gender equality despite growing challenges and restrictions. They argue that the legacies of gender equality in the UN spaces are primarily a result of the labour of feminist advocates within and outside the UN. Simultaneously, they demonstrate how the UN itself made available a “movement building infrastructure for feminist advocacy and critical cross-pollination across sectors, regions, and relationships.” (p. 6) In the context of the Syrian conflict and the egress of transnational funding since 2011, Weam Ghabash explores how international funding has simultaneously helped and limited Syrian feminist organisations. On the one hand, such funding has helped expand services and influence policy. On the other, feminist activists face complex pressures that deepen depoliticisation of feminist aims and existing hierarchies within Syrian feminist movements. This further leads to the exclusion of grassroots feminist organisations.
Resistance to colonial legacies and hierarchies of knowledge
Several contributions challenge traditional ideas of feminist advocacy and highlight alternative ways of organising and building solidarity. These articles question neoliberal ways of organising and instead bring attention to the voices and strategies of historically marginalised and oppressed communities.
Shazia Khan explores how Launda ke Naach, a dance-theatre tradition rooted in marginalised communities, helps Queer Indo-Caribbean communities resist exclusion and reclaim their identity, history, and sense of belonging. The article argues that performance itself can be a form of feminist and queer advocacy which challenges social inequalities related to caste, class, gender, and colonialism while giving marginalised communities a way to express resistance and build solidarity. In the context of Türkiye, Sena Bilen-Gürçay demonstrates how organising-oriented women’s cooperatives become spaces where women raise shared concerns, challenge exclusion, and gradually create opportunities for gender equality without provoking direct conflict with the state or local communities. At the same time, the author draws attention to how women’s participation is often limited by care responsibilities, lack of time, and unequal access to resources and highlights the need to address these barriers while recognising grassroots organising as an important form of feminist advocacy.
Annie Douglas examines how women in Vanuatu strategically use traditional ideas about women as caring mothers and family members to gain support from male chiefs and promote women’s political participation. While these essentialist and instrumentalist strategies can help women challenge barriers and avoid backlash in the short term, they risk reinforcing gender stereotypes. As women are aware of this risk, they assert the importance of balancing practical advocacy with the long-term goal of gender equality through ‘patience’ and ‘going slow’. Alice Carolline Costa Hassan Querino explores how Indigenous Brazilian women, who were elected to office, use Instagram and offline activism for advocacy. Through these methods, they brought attention to the historical abuse and violence against Indigenous communities and exposed harmful state policies. The article highlights digital advocacy as a powerful tool for political mobilisation and transformation. Additionally, Querino calls on feminist scholars to question colonial biases in knowledge production.
Anna Maria Noguera Duran and Rachel Palmén examine how feminist scholar-activists can challenge Western dominance in knowledge production. They examine “the efforts to build ethical and affective alliances grounded in reciprocity, respect, reflexivity, and recognition of plurality of knowledge” (p. 9). They argue that feminist research must recognise local cultures, spiritual beliefs, and different forms of knowledge, while also addressing power inequalities and respecting diverse experiences. In the context of Chile, Javiera Menchaca-Pardow discusses how feminist health activists are resisting dominant biomedical and neoliberal approaches through intersectional feminist approaches, in the context of sexual and reproductive health care. Activists are doing so by changing everyday practices and reinterpreting how ‘self-determination’ is conceptualised in medicine. The article highlights how these activists use education, collective learning, and feminist approaches to reveal healthcare violence and develop more inclusive, rights-based alternatives to the existing system.
The role of feminist advocacy in furthering gender justice and transformative change is undeniable and critical. This special issue highlights the contexts, experiences, challenges, and learnings from feminist advocacy practice.
This blog is based on the introduction to the special issue authored by Awino Okech and Sohela Nazneen.