Strand 1

Migrations and Mobilities from a Feminist, Queer and Intersectional Perspective

Coordinators: Sabrina Marchetti, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice; Giorgia Serughetti, University of Milano-Bicocca; Sara de Jong, University of York; Matteo Zani, University of Milano-Bicocca.

 → abstracts to be sent to: efrc.strand1@gmail.com, info@atgender.eu 

This Strand invites papers on topics related to migrations and mobilities from feminist perspectives. We also seek to interrogate what kind of research is – or could be – done from a feminist, queer and intersectional perspective to challenge the oppressive and restrictive governance of mobility and citizenship. How can feminist, queer and intersectional approaches question mainstream narratives and representations on migrancy? This means also to interrogate the tensions and overlaps between the fields of migration studies, gender, sexuality and queer studies, family studies, border studies as well as refugee and forced migration studies.

Issues such as care and sex work, violence against migrants and refugees, gendered border crossing, labour and precarity are particularly relevant to this perspective, though we also welcome presentations on other topics.  Important as well are questions about the relationship between migration and the transformation of gender roles, of gendered imaginaries and of women and lgbtqia+ people agency and strategies of resistance and collective organization. We also invite methodological reflections on what feminist, intersectional and queer migration research entails and what ethical questions it raises.

In so doing, this Strand aims to gather queer and feminist scholars and activists and welcomes empirical as well as  theorethical contributions. We believe that gender studies need to further engage in and pose questions to the fast growing field of interdisciplinary refugee, forced migration and border studies. Feminist researchers also needto re-evaluate their position in the context of the  increased politicization of research done on mobility and citizenship issues in Europe.

For this purpose we are calling for contributions that are applying feminist, queer and/or intersectional perspectives to the following topics:

  • Media, legal, political and cultural  narratives, imaginaries and representations of migration

  • Experiences and memories of  marginalisation and agency 

  • Strategies of resistance, solidarity and collective action

  • The social, political and legal governance of the migration infrastructure

  • Bordering practices and border regimes

  • Labour exploitation and precarity

  • Care and sex work

  • Sexual and gender-based violence as a site of victimisation and agency

  • Sexuality and reproductive rights

  • Transnational  and migrant households, couples and gender roles

  • Research methodologies and ethical issues

  • Sites and forms of self-representation, activism and mutual aid by migrants and refugees