New Article: Feminist activism in crisis in Northern Ireland

The latest research from the Centre for Gender in Politics focuses on the gendered effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on feminist activists in Northern Ireland (NI). In the piece Maria-Adriana Deiana, Danielle Roberts and I consider the less explored strategies employed by feminist activists to navigate ongoing challenges amid the pandemic, focusing on queer and feminist activists in NI.

Mobilizing feminist scholarship on the politics of crisis and the study of feminist movements, our article presents findings from a collaborative research project that sought to understand how the crisis engendered by the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting on feminist activism in NI post-Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. Drawing on focus groups with local activists, we outline how the effects of the pandemic compound the long history of marginalization and de-prioritization of gender equality and justice seen throughout the peace process and its multiple crises.

We trace how the activists who participated to this study have continued to organize collectively through online networks, gendersensitive policy recommendations, proposals for a comprehensive recovery plan, as well as through mutual aid practices that have a long lineage in feminist activism amidst the conflict and in NI’s unfinished peace.

The context of NI offers a valuable case study to trouble the temporalities and boundaries of global crises, deepening our understanding of feminist strategies for collective organizing in complex political terrains.

Read the piece open access here.