17-18 September 2024, University of Turku

Keynote speakers:

Sara Farris, Goldsmiths, University of London

Beverley Skeggs, Lancaster University

Marxist feminism is experiencing a resurgence. It is capturing the attention of feminists seeking to understand how to intervene, theoretically and politically, in the forces of oppression, exploitation and domination at play both locally and globally. The core of this resurgence lies in the theoretical diversity of Marxist feminism, which weaves various elements from Marxist theory together with, for example, queer theory, intersectionality, and postcolonial theory.

Feminist Encounters with Marxism delves into these dynamic intersections. The event explores the evolving landscape of Marxist feminist thought, seeking to understand how it inspires and informs feminist research and politics today. Marxism has animated feminist analysis and struggles in many ways, and feminist scholars have made important contributions to Marxist thought by developing its conceptual repertoire, expanding its scope of questions and contexts and reconstructing its theoretical premises. Fruitful exchanges have involved, for instance, social reproduction, environmental crisis, psychic dimensions of power, the politics of class, gender, race and sexuality, and the structural and material conditions of everyday life.

Feminist Encounters with Marxism assembles scholars and students interested in the intersections between Marxism and feminism. We welcome papers that engage with Marxist thought from different feminist perspectives. The papers may address, but need not be limited to, the following questions:

• What is the relevance of Marxist ideas and conceptions to feminist theory today?
• What does Marxist thought have to offer contemporary feminist analysis and politics?
• How can Marxist perspectives animate feminist struggles now and in the future?
• How can we think together with Marxist ideas, and what are they good for?
• How should we rethink and rework Marxist categories and concepts from different feminist perspectives?
• How can we use Marxist feminist concepts and perspectives in empirical research and in variegated historical, cultural and social contexts?
• How can Marxist feminist thought inspire political imagination?

The event consists of keynote lectures, a roundtable and working groups. The keynote lectures and roundtable are open to everyone; working groups will be reserved to a limited number of registered participants.

Submission guidelines:

Please register for the event through the online submission form by 30 April.

https://link.webropolsurveys.com/S/B4E52990FA72768C

Please indicate whether you wish to present or to attend without presenting. Preference will be given to those presenting a paper. Please submit your abstract and a short biographical note through the online submission form. Notification of acceptance will be sent by 15 May.

The presenters are invited to submit either full papers (max 8000 words) or a short, 4-5 page summary of their paper in advance – by 15 August. Papers will be circulated among the participants of the working groups in order to facilitate in-depth discussion. The format is flexible and can include working papers, article manuscripts, research proposals, essays etc.

The event is organized in collaboration with the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Turku (Finland) and Department of Gender Studies at the Örebro University (Sweden). We also cordially acknowledge support from Culture and Interaction network (KULTVA) at the University of Turku and The Association of Marxist Social Research (MYTS) for organising this event.

Organizing committee:

Suvi Salmenniemi (University of Turku),

Sami Torssonen (University of Turku),

Evelina Johansson Wilén (Örebro University)

For more information, please contact Suvi Salmenniemi, suvi.salmenniemi [at] utu.fi.

Keynote lectures:

The coloniality of social reproduction

Sara Farris

Since the early 2020s the UK has recruited hundreds of thousands of migrant care workers as it faces a huge care crisis where shortages in care are amongst the worse in recent history. An aspect of this current flow in labour mobility that has not received sufficient attention is the fact that the large majority of these migrant workers are women from former British colonies. While labour recruitment from the colonies is not new in British history as it regularly took place during colonial times and under the Commonwealth, it is worth noting that this new mass wave of labour mobility involves mostly women to be employed in the socially reproductive sectors of health and social care. Based on research with migrant workers employed in private care homes in London, this paper aims to explore the specific implications of colonial relations for understanding the contemporary capitalist re-organisation of social reproduction. To do this, I bring into dialogue SRT with the work of Anibal Quijano, Maria Mies and Gargi Bhattacharya among others.

Biographical note: Sara R. Farris is Associate Professor in Sociology at Goldsmiths University of London. She is the author of In the name of women’s rights. The rise of femonationalism (Duke UP, 2017) and of many articles on migration, gender, care and social reproduction.

Using feminist Marxism (with culture) to explain and study things

Beverley Skeggs

I begin with a problem, which began in the 80s, “how to explain the formation of working-class women’s subjectivity in order to understand how they respond to power”. This emerged from a specific Gramscian question about how and why people give consent to power. I realised I had to be specific about what power and for me feminist explanations were not enough (traditional patriarchy, gender ideology), I realised I needed the economic, political and cultural. So I began a mapping exercise via Paul Willis, Stuart Hall, Richard Johnson (CCCS Birmingham). They were all criticised by traditional Marxist men of the time for being not-Marxist, ie they studied the cultural in detail. But…they didn’t engage with feminism. So I tried to construct a framework that incorporated both. Usefully the feminist Butler/Fraser debate consolidated the issues by focusing on recognition. But I worked out that that was not enough to explain the lives of working class women. So then I began to interrogate specific concepts to see if they would help eg how does recognition work for those who do not want to be recognised? Or the concept of ‘value’ for feminism? All of my research has been about an engagement between the cultural and political economy. I landed on history and property (early Marx), performance (feminism, cultural studies, queer theory) and personhood (anthropology) to understand class differences when studying queer lives, reality TV, and social media. It’s my best explanation so far…….

Biographical note: Beverley Skeggs is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Lancaster University. Previously she was Director of the Atlantic Fellows Programme at the LSE, Professor of Sociology, at Goldsmiths, University of London and Manchester University. She has published The Media; Issues in Sociology (1992); Feminist Cultural Theory (1995); Formations of Class and Gender (1997); Class, Self, Culture (2004); Sexuality and the Politics of Violence and Safety (2004)(with Les Moran) and Feminism after Bourdieu (2005)( with Lisa Adkins), and with Helen Wood, Reacting to Reality TV: Audience, Performance, Value (2012) and Reality TV and Class (2012). And ran an ESRC project on “A Sociology of Value and Value” based on software research. Plus lots of other writing. The 3 vol Sage Handbook of Marxism was recently published with Sara Farris, Alberto Toscano and Svenya Bromberg.