Feminists Confront Neoliberalism: Lessons from DAWN and Articulación Feminista Marcosur

Abstract

Neoliberalism, which is the dominant economic and political paradigm, is associated with trade liberalization, deregulation, austerity, and precariarization of the labour market. While the neoliberal and feminist logics may seem incompatible, there are several ways in which feminist movements can accidentally collude with neoliberalism. Nancy Fraser describes this as “the dangerous liaison between feminism and marketization.” This thesis aims to contribute to the debates around Fraser’s charge of feminist co-optation, and examines if feminist networks in the Global South are susceptible to any degree of complicity with neoliberalism. I have analyzed the campaigns and activism of two major feminist networks from the Global South — Articulación Feminista Marcosur (AFM), and Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) to see if they have been successful in resisting any form of collusion with neoliberalism. In order to do so, I conducted theory-driven participant observation, supplemented with analysis of academic and grey literature, at the 2018 World Social Forum in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil. AFM’s Campaign Against Fundamentalisms faces the issue of lapsing into the “problem of displacement” as they tend to focus on cultural issues, while sidelining the economic ones. However, while moving beyond the “problem of displacement,” their “Our Bodies Our Territories” campaign continues to operate within an ultimately problematic Westphalian nation-state framework. While DAWN does conduct an intersectional analysis, it adopts an “add and stir” approach, and fails to make adequate connections between the neoconservative cultural and neoliberal economic forces. This thesis attempts to provide some lessons and strategies that feminist networks, and the WSF in general, can adopt in the face of neoliberal, and other related crises such as the rise of right-wing authoritarian governments, and the global COVID-19 pandemic.