Tuesday 18 November

G2, 10 Priory Road

Abstract: This paper argues that the debate about the dangers of empathy in feminist studies needs to be reframed in two main ways. Firstly I suggest we need to interpret empathy and conflict as co-extensive and connected modes of ethical engagement. Such an approach also highlights the similarities in feminists’ treatment of negative emotions across three decades, in contrast to the assumption that dark feelings are being rediscovered by the turn to affect. Second, I argue that an ethics of feminist conflict needs to pay attention to its embodied dimension and starts in the classroom. Drawing on Audre Lorde’s work, I develop erotic pedagogies which go beyond the masculinist adversarial model of conflict avoiding some of the risks of paralysis and destruction. If we do this, then conflict becomes an opportunity to build more vibrant, deep and ethical relational ties that keep feminism alive and kicking. Rather than a radical affirmation of negativity this paper shows how conflict practiced with erotic power can be a transformative dimension of feminist social bonds.

 

Tuesday 14 October, 1-2

G2, 10 Priory Road

Abstract: In this seminar I’ll present some of the preliminary work and thinking underpinning the Quipu project, an ongoing collaborative project on forced sterilisations in Peru.  The sterilisations took place as part of a National Population Programme introduced in 1990.  The programme was supposed to provide all Peruvians with access to reproductive healthcare and birth control, including the option of voluntary sterilisation.  In practice, tens of thousands of people (mainly women, but also some men, most of them poor and most of them indigenous) were sterilised through the 1990s without their consent, and at least fifteen women died as a direct result.  The forced sterilisations were not addressed in the 2001-2003 Truth and Reconciliation process which investigated other state abuses in the 1990s, and attempts to prosecute the ministers believed to be responsible have also failed – the judicial case against them was recently archived for the fifth time.  The Quipu project is exploring ways to enable individuals and communities affected by forced sterilisation to share their testimonies and experiences using a combination of high and low communication technologies.   In doing so, it aims to facilitate the construction of collective memory and voice that challenge state-sanctioned silences and silencing on the issue.