WCWS 2021 Call for Papers
7th World Conference on Women’s Studies 2021
We invite academics, policymakers, activists, independent scholars and graduate students to send their abstracts to the 7th World Conference on Women’s Studies 2021 (WCWS 2021) under the theme “Transnational Feminisms–Contexts, Collaborations, Contestations: Toward a Liveable Planet”.
About the theme: Each year, the WCWS develops a new theme based on input from the previous year’s conference attendees, which are taken into consideration by the conference chair in an effort to reflect inspiring and critical ideas in Women’s Studies. This year, through the input of a number of participants, with special thanks to Dr. Nupur Ray’s detailed comments, we introduce the theme Transnational Feminisms–Contexts, Collaborations, Contestations: Toward a Liveable Planet. A conference theme offers guiding questions for participants as they reflect on how to present their scholarly, activist, and/or policy-oriented work. Here we ask: What does it mean to create a liveable planet and what is the role of transnational feminisms in this most necessary of all endeavors? A liveable planet demands collaboration across disciplines, ideologies, experiences, and worldviews. It requires us to transform the processes that are creating ever-growing inequalities through inequities forged by the poisonous nexus of the following factors: late global capitalism and its corporate domination of the means of production, with GDP and global markets as the measure of economic success; multiple patriarchies; fundamentalist religious ideologies; the spread of increasingly authoritarian political systems; the resurgence of the nuclear threat; exponential population growth and the destruction of natural habitats, pollution, extractive technologies, toxic wastes and of course the existential threat of climate crisis. How can transnational feminisms intervene in these processes, transforming them into sustainable, equitable, holistic, nurturing societies that value the creative and loving aspects of human cultural diversity, that measure “progress” and “complexity” not exclusively by technological advancement or by persistent neocolonial and neoliberal lenses, but which instead honor and protect endangered cultures, Indigenous peoples, and of course, the biosphere we all depend upon? Let us reflect upon these questions and bring into focus the brilliant insights of the influential transnational feminist, M. Jaqui Alexander who argued in her 2005 work, Pedagogies of Crossing: Meditations on Feminism, Sexual Politics, Memory, and the Sacred:
“If there were ever a moment when interdisciplinary is most needed it is now, but we need a kind of interdisciplinary that fashions simultaneous articulations with radical political movements in ways that bring the necessary complexity to the multiple narratives about how history is made.”
Let’s move forward in this endeavor, harnessing the challenges and promises of transnational feminisms to reflect on the topics below and the questions above.