Update March 28: Event has reached maximum capacity and is now fully booked, but you can register for waiting list here: https://link.webropol.com/s/globalfem We will inform you of any available seats by email.

If you have registered and know that you are unable to attend, please let us now as as soon as possible so that we can offer these spots to other participants: https://link.webropol.com/s/globalfcancellation

Feminist global political economy: understanding the present, imagining alternative futures

You are cordially invited to a public event on feminist global political economy on Wednesday, 24 April 16.00-18.00 at University of Helsinki, lecture hall Porthania III (Yliopistonkatu 3). The event will be held in English.

How does feminist political economy research contribute to our understanding of the interconnected global crises concerning care, inequality, democracy, and climate? The capitalist economic system, driven by the pursuit of continuous growth, fosters the unsustainable consumption of natural and human resources. This system relies heavily on unpaid labour, the devaluation of wage labor, and the exploitation of both people and the environment, spanning from the global South to the North. Concurrently, it perpetuates and exacerbates gendered, racialized, and class-based inequalities. The objective of this public event is twofold: to critically assess the shortcomings of the current economic paradigm through the lens of feminist global political economy and to envisage alternative futures. How can we chart paths away from crises and inequalities, actively contributing to the establishment of economic frameworks that promote global equality, social justice, and ecological sustainability?

Program

16.00-17.00 Keynote lecture: Professor Shirin M. Rai (SOAS University of London): Social Reproduction, Depletion and/in Crises

17.00-18.00 Panel discussion: Global crises, imagination and social change

Panelists: Shirin M. Rai, university lecturer Teppo Eskelinen (University of Eastern Finland), specialist on global justice Eppu Mikkonen (Fingo), member of the Finnish parliament Atte Harjanne, chair: Hanna Ylöstalo (University of Turku)

Space is limited, therefore we kindly request that you register with sincere commitment. Should you encounter a significant obstacle, we appreciate your prompt cancellation of your participation here: https://link.webropol.com/s/globalfcancellation

Contact: taru.e.lepisto@utu.fi

Keynote: Social Reproduction, Depletion and/in Crises 

Professor Shirin M. Rai, SOAS University of London 

Social reproduction and depletion are important lenses to understand the crisis effects of political economy. All crises—environmental, financial, political, and social—have the potential to intensify depletion as people struggle to resource social reproduction, with racialised and gendered division of labour making life / and work particularly difficult. I suggest that instead of a caring society we were and are living in a careless society— one that depends on care but does not value the ‘doing’ of care. The cost of this carelessness is heavy and is paid by society as a whole, but more so by those socially marginalised, intensifying their depletion through social reproductive and care labour. Social reproduction and depletion then are grounded in this complexity. Building on this analysis I briefly discuss the emerging strategies of reversing depletion that could be and are being mobilized to open up new avenues of reimagining and reshaping social reproduction.

Panel discussion: Global crises, imagination and social change

The panel discusses the urgent climate, care, economic and democratic crises, and the deepening social inequality from global political economy perspective. While highlighting the critical challenges we are facing today the panel also reflects prospects for an alternative future. What kind of changes are essential in our global political economy if we want to salvage a livable planet? What kind of systems and structures are required to tackle gendered, racialized and class-based inequalities and the exhausting of human and natural resources? The panel addresses the crucial need to imagine alternatives to the current economies and policies, and to build up better futures.

Speakers

Shirin M. Rai is Distinguished Research Professor of Politics and International Relations (SOAS University of London) and a fellow of the British Academy. Rai is an interdisciplinary scholar and has written extensively on issues of gender, governance and development and gender and political institutions. Feminist international political economy is a key strand in Rai’s work. Her work on depletion through social reproduction has analysed the costs of doing social reproductive work, how this might be measured and transformed. Rai’s book, Depletion: the human cost of care (OUP, 2024) will be published in June this year.

Teppo Eskelinen is university lecturer at the University of Eastern Finland. Eskelinen’s research areas include political philosophy, political economy, development theory, democracy and social movements. He has edited the anthology The revival of political imagination: Utopia as methodology (Bloomsbury).

Eppu Mikkonen is Specialist on Global Justice in Fingo (the umbrella organisation for Finnish development NGOs). Mikkonen has worked in diverse areas of international development and, more recently, decolonizing aid. Her areas of expertise include gender equality, population ageing, social protection, and futures studies and foresight.

Atte Harjanne is member of the Finnish parliament, chair of the Green parliamentary group, and member of Helsinki city council. Previously he has worked as a researcher studying economic and social impacts of climate change. His main political themes include fighting climate change and loss of biodiversity, and defending science-based policy and equal democracy.

The event is organized by FEMTIE research project, The Finnish Society for Political Economy Research and The Finnish Review of Political Economy.