Published Essays and Articles by Evelina Johansson Wilén
Acta Sociologica, 2023
The relation between different forms of oppressive structures has been an object of dispute throu... more The relation between different forms of oppressive structures has been an object of dispute throughout the history of feminism. One of the most influential debates devoted to this issue is the one between Judith Butler and Nancy Fraser during the 1990s. Although the debate attracted a great deal of attention, and both thinkers have subsequently developed their theories by introducing novel concepts to describe oppression as well as the conditions of contemporary emancipatory movements, they have not continued to engage in each other's work. This article offers a critical reading of the positions that Fraser and Butler took in the 1990s debate, as well as an identification of shifts in their thinking ensuing from the debate. A particular interest of the article is their conceptualisations of the grounds for political alliances among groups with distinct experiences of oppression. The article not only offers a critique of both Butler's and Fraser's positions in the 1990s debate but also argues that the way in which Fraser's trajectory has come to directly address the issue of the capitalist social order, and which can also be read as an implicit self-critique, is more satisfactory than Butler's later work on precarity.
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Feminist theory, 2020
This article discusses three different conceptions of ethics within contemporary feminist theory ... more This article discusses three different conceptions of ethics within contemporary feminist theory and how they depict the connection between ethics and politics. The first position, represented by Wendy Brown, mainly describes ethics as a sort of anti-political moralism and apolitical individualism, and hence as a turn away from politics. The second position, represented by Saba Mahmood, discusses ethics as a precondition for politics, while the third position, represented by Vikki Bell, depicts it as the 'external consciousness' of the political, and as destabilizing political discourse by confronting it with singularity and 'radical' difference. Though they represent distinct positions, the article argues, all three suffer from a tendency to reify ethics by failing to give a contextualized account of it. The article then introduces the ethical perspective of Judith Butler, arguing that she-while offering both a transhistorical and a contextualized dimension-tends to psychologize and individualize ethics and politics. The last part of the article introduces Terry Eagleton and what, in a Marxian vein, could be called a 'materialist ethics' or an 'ethics of socialism' and argues that this way of framing the relationship between ethics and politics provides a solution to the trap of reification identified in the three described positions. This part also discusses how Eagleton's theory relates to-but also differs from-arguments made by Butler. One advantage of
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Tidskrift för genusvetenskap, 2019
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Journal of Resistance Studies, 2018
An important camp within the emerging field of resistance studies has been characterised by a ten... more An important camp within the emerging field of resistance studies has been characterised by a tendency to study and theorise matters of culture, language, and discourse at the expense of matter itself. For researchers interested in feminist resistance, feminist new materialism – with its focus on the entanglements of ‘natureculture’, matter, the body, sexual difference, agency, and change – might appear to offer productive theoretical tools that can help shift the focus towards materiality. Through a reading of selected works of influential feminist new materialists, this article critically analyses how resistance can be articulated within the theoretical scope of feminist new materialism. While the authors agree with the identified gains of a material turn within resistance studies and in relation to feminist resistance, it is shown that new materialism is of little help in this regard. In a first step, it is argued that the new materialist attempt to undermine the modern and postmodern forms of Cartesian dualism ends up reproducing its fundamental premise through the equation of difference and independence on the one hand, and of identity and unity on the other. In a second step, the authors argue that the failed attempt to challenge Cartesian dualism gives rise to two theoretical problems with important implications for feminist resistance. On the one hand, in its efforts to transcend older versions of materiality as unalterable and constant, feminist new materialism comes to privilege change and the register of historical specificity at the expense of limits and the register of the transhistorical, in a way that disguises resistance rooted in the relatively stable condition of vulnerability. On the other hand, in its attempt to supersede the difference between nature and humanity by granting agency to matter, feminist new materialism is led to sacrifice intentional action in a way that undermines core aspects of the emerging field of resistance studies.
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Tidskrift för Genusvetenskap, 2018
In this article, I analyze the intricate relationship between feminism and critique, as it is pla... more In this article, I analyze the intricate relationship between feminism and critique, as it is played out in interviews conducted with self-identified Swedish feminists. I discuss the ways in which the informants describe feminism as a critical endeavour and understand feminists as critical subjects in connection to the neo-liberal context in which my informants articulate their feminist position and identity. I also analyze how my informants understand critique as something that both complicates and enables feminist politics, relating the discussion to a conceptualization of the political – underlying the work of Wendy Brown, Chantal Mouffe and Nancy Fraser – as a combination of ongoing agonistic struggles and formations of collective normative projects based on temporary discursive exclusions
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Social Inclusion, 2018
This article explores how resistance and power are intertwined within the field of mainstream Swe... more This article explores how resistance and power are intertwined within the field of mainstream Swedish feminism, by an- alyzing some of its more visible expressions and strategies. These feminist resistance strategies could be described as circulating resistance (e.g., the #metoo campaign), public assemblies, the more subtle “disciplinary resistance”, and state feminism. The article illustrates how these different forms of resistance fuel different reactions from movements that reiterate different discourses of “anti-genderism”. In addition, some forms of feminism (state feminism and feminist disci- plinary resistance) sometimes develop into, or overlap with, different technologies of power.
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Tidskriften Röda rummet, 2018
En introduktion till Nancy Frasers tänkande
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Respons, 2018
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Ord&Bild, 2017
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Nora , 2013
This article discusses feminist resistance in relation to different concepts of power. In particu... more This article discusses feminist resistance in relation to different concepts of power. In particular, it analyses current debates within Swedish feminism in order to understand what perceptions of power and resistance are being harboured within these discussions. Within the Swedish feminist debate it has been suggested that the equality debate must be radicalized, creating real change instead of policy reports and political party programmes. Others, however, have argued that we must not abandon equality politics for “conflict, struggle, and revolt”. This debate is discussed from different theories of power and resistance, and we argue that different forms of power become entangled with different forms of resistance, thus creating manifold and messy forms of resistance.
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Tidskrift för genusvetenskap, 2009
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Papers by Evelina Johansson Wilén
Social Inclusion, Nov 22, 2018
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Labor History
In recent years feminist movements have increasingly employed the form and rhetoric of strikes in... more In recent years feminist movements have increasingly employed the form and rhetoric of strikes in framing their protests. The rise of the women’s strike movement has been seen as an indicator of an invigorated wave of feminist activism that focuses, to a greater extent, on structural economic injustices. The aim of this article is to provide a historical aspect to the growing research on strikes as a multifaceted form of protest. The article analyses articulations of collective identity, solidarity, and sisterhood in two different kinds of ‘women’s strikes’ that took place in the Nordic region during the mid-1970s; the ASAB cleaners’ strikes in Sweden during 1974–1975 and the Icelandic Women’s Day Off that took place on October 24, 1975. The article explores how the relationship between gender and class was conceptualized by participants, organizers, and bystanders. We employ these cases to study how solidarity and sisterhood across differences among women might have appeared in practice while at the same time reflecting internal tensions and varying interests. Moreover, the article reflects on the specific form of the strikes and the potential impact their respective form might have had on the political articulations that came out of them.
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Labor History
In recent years feminist movements have increasingly employed the form and rhetoric of strikes in... more In recent years feminist movements have increasingly employed the form and rhetoric of strikes in framing their protests. The rise of the women’s strike movement has been seen as an indicator of an invigorated wave of feminist activism that focuses, to a greater extent, on structural economic injustices. The aim of this article is to provide a historical aspect to the growing research on strikes as a multifaceted form of protest. The article analyses articulations of collective identity, solidarity, and sisterhood in two different kinds of ‘women’s strikes’ that took place in the Nordic region during the mid-1970s; the ASAB cleaners’ strikes in Sweden during 1974–1975 and the Icelandic Women’s Day Off that took place on October 24, 1975. The article explores how the relationship between gender and class was conceptualized by participants, organizers, and bystanders. We employ these cases to study how solidarity and sisterhood across differences among women might have appeared in practice while at the same time reflecting internal tensions and varying interests. Moreover, the article reflects on the specific form of the strikes and the potential impact their respective form might have had on the political articulations that came out of them.
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Labor history, 2023
In recent years feminist movements have increasingly employed the form and rhetoric of strikes in... more In recent years feminist movements have increasingly employed the form and rhetoric of strikes in framing their protests. The rise of the women’s strike movement has been seen as an indicator of an invigorated wave of feminist activism that focuses, to a greater extent, on structural economic injustices. The aim of this article is to provide a historical aspect to the growing research on strikes as a multifaceted form of protest. The article analyses articulations of collective identity, solidarity, and sisterhood in two different kinds of ‘women’s strikes’ that took place in the Nordic region during the mid-1970s; the ASAB cleaners’ strikes in Sweden during 1974–1975 and the Icelandic Women’s Day Off that took place on October 24, 1975. The article explores how the relationship between gender and class was conceptualized by participants, organizers, and bystanders. We employ these cases to study how solidarity and sisterhood across differences among women might have appeared in practice while at the same time reflecting internal tensions and varying interests. Moreover, the article reflects on the specific form of the strikes and the potential impact their respective form might have had on the political articulations that came out of them.
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Feminist Theory, 2023
Sugar dating has gained extensive media coverage over the last couple of years, often being depic... more Sugar dating has gained extensive media coverage over the last couple of years, often being depicted as a veiled form of prostitution / sex work. While similar dating arrangements encompassing some sort of economic compensation are well researched in an African and Asian context, sugar dating has only garnered attention from researchers in the Global North during the last decade, in the wake of a proliferation of websites facilitating the practice. In light of the contested nature of the phenomenon, in this article we critically assess how knowledge about sugar dating is constructed in the emerging literature on the topic in the Global North, with a particular focus on the role attributed to sugar daters' own experiential accounts. Alongside furthering the discourse on sugar dating by unravelling the epistemological underpinnings of existing research, we utilise the case of sugar-dating research to elaborate on the continued relevance of feminist debates on the epistemological status of experience. We call for a more comprehensive theoretical examination of experience in sugar-dating research and posit that some versions of feminist standpoint theory, as well as strands in feminist phenomenology, provide valuable theoretical tools for navigating between understanding experience as an ideological construct and/or as a privileged foundation of knowledge.
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Feminist Theory
Sugar dating has gained extensive media coverage over the last couple of years, often being depic... more Sugar dating has gained extensive media coverage over the last couple of years, often being depicted as a veiled form of prostitution / sex work. While similar dating arrangements encompassing some sort of economic compensation are well researched in an African and Asian context, sugar dating has only garnered attention from researchers in the Global North during the last decade, in the wake of a proliferation of websites facilitating the practice. In light of the contested nature of the phenomenon, in this article we critically assess how knowledge about sugar dating is constructed in the emerging literature on the topic in the Global North, with a particular focus on the role attributed to sugar daters’ own experiential accounts. Alongside furthering the discourse on sugar dating by unravelling the epistemological underpinnings of existing research, we utilise the case of sugar-dating research to elaborate on the continued relevance of feminist debates on the epistemological statu...
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Tidskrift för genusvetenskap
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Tidskrift för genusvetenskap
In this article we analyze the public debate on gender mainstreaming of higher education and rese... more In this article we analyze the public debate on gender mainstreaming of higher education and research in Sweden between 2016– 2020, focusing on 1) positions that advocate the gender equality initiatives and 2) positions that criticize them. A recurring theme in the defense and the critique of gender mainstreaming is whether gender mainstreaming policies should be understood as ideologically driven or not and how this relates to the university’s scientific task. In the analysis, we focus on which understanding of the relationship between science and politics that appears in the empirical material and how this – explicitly or implicitly – expresses different understandings of ideology and its relation to science. We find that both sides tend to build on either a negative or a functionalist/ positive conception of ideology, and we argue that an epistemic approach to ideology paves the way for a more nuanced and reflexive scientific debate on the relationship between politics and knowle...
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Published Essays and Articles by Evelina Johansson Wilén
Papers by Evelina Johansson Wilén