Women and men in Europe in the first decades of the 21st century are confronted with acute social, political, cultural, economic and environmental concerns, including increasingly racist politics and nationalist discourses across Europe, huge cutbacks in social services and education, strengthening conservative gender discourses, and an overall climate unfavorable if not hostile to feminist, queer, and other progressive movements. In striving to address these concerns on regional, national, and international levels, feminist scholars are re-assessing their theoretical and political toolbox. The 'politics of location', coined by Adrienne Rich in 1976, continues to play a crucial role in these debates. Women's and gender studies cannot do without reflecting on the politics of their locations, but how to use this tool now that locations are constantly shifting? When the locations we inhabit are perceived to be multiple, paradoxical, and (in)comparable?
The 8th European Feminist Research Conference invites scholars, students, activists, and policymakers to re-visit their politics of location in the light of current crises in Europe and beyond and to reflect upon the ways in which feminist scholarly tools can be used for understanding and for changing the world.
The 8th European Feminist Research Conference will be held in Budapest, Hungary on May 17-20, 2012.