This is a call for RINGS members. However, member organizations are encouraged to invite others towards extending membership, with particular emphasis on strengthening the participation of those from countries in the global South.

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 national assembly meetings and conferences 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. In 2017, the RINGS annual meeting and conference will be hosted by the EDDA Research Center at the University of Iceland in collaboration with the United Nations Gender Equality and Training Programme (UNU-GEST) and RIKK – Institute for Gender, Equality and Difference.

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Gender politics in local and global contexts are clearly shifting and subject to multiple and fluid reconfigurations. Gender politics have clear geopolitical dimensions. 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. Yet, feminist resistances of multiple sorts and across local and global contexts continue to oppose and disrupt.

 

Goals of the 2017 conference:

1) To share feminist research and criticism of the rise of nationalism and populism from transnational perspectives;

2) To share research within RINGS through the framework of thinking about the gender dimensions of new political, social and cultural trends;

3) To critically assess the limitations to scholarly collaboration due to geopolitical location and related inequalities.

 

Suggested conference topics include, but are not limited to:

• Feminism, Nationalism, and Populism
• The Return to Nationalism, Nativism and Traditionalism: (Re-)Framing Feminist Resistance Strategies
• The Gendered Dimensions of the Populist Resurgence: Global Perspectives
• Mobilizations against Social Exclusion: Transnational and
• Transcultural Connections
• History and Memory: Colonial, Fascist, and Populist Discourses
• Border Regimes and Human Rights: Globalized Migration and the Challenge of Nationalism
• Regimes of Discrimination and Social Inequalities
• Gender and Violence: Neo-Patriarchy and the Attack on Women‘s Rights
• Political, Social and Economic Crises and the Radical Right
• Populism, Post-Truths, and Academic Freedoms
• Popular, Activist, Performative and Artistic Feminist Resistances

 

Open stream: Please note that interested participants are also welcome to submit papers to an open stream, dealing with other questions in gender research and studies.

Technical information:

Host organization: The EDDA Research Center will host the event in collaboration with UNU-GEST and RIKK at the University of Iceland.

Venue: To be confirmed.

Registration fee for institutions is variable by location, up to 100 euros. This fee will support RINGS solidarity fund. Participants from lower income countries can apply for funding from the solidarity fund to help cover travel cost. For further information, please contact Irma Erlingsdóttir, irma@hi.is

Accommodation and travel costs are to be covered by participants. The hosts may be able to assist with accommodation if requested and will arrange for reduced prices.

Deadline for abstract submission and registration: Abstracts of maximum 500 words may be submitted before or on 31 July 2017 to kip@hi.is with the subject title: “RINGS abstract.” (Please use this form).

 

Conference committee:

Irma Erlingsdóttir, University of Iceland, chair (irma@hi.is)

Tamara Shefer, University of Cape Town

Anália Torres, University of Lisbon

Jeff Hearn, Örebro University

Valur Ingimundarson, University of Iceland

Pétur Waldorff, University of Iceland

Kristín Pálsdóttir, University of Iceland