Call for Volunteers - Research Project on Radical Feminism

I received the announcement below in my mailbox today and thought it would be helpful to post it here, as it might interest some of you:

December 7th 2007

PLEASE CIRCULATE IN YOUR NETWORKS

Hello there! Are you a radical feminist? Did you first get involved in radical feministactivism in the mid-1990s in Quebec? Do you want to share your experience and analyses with other feminists, the population in general and with the academic milieu? If you answered “yes” to these questions, I would like to meet with you!

My name is Jacinthe and I work with the CRAC – a research group oncollective autonomy – that is affiliated with the School of Community and Public Affairs at Concordia University (under the responsibility of Anna Kruzynski). The CRAC is an anti-authoritarian (pro)feminist affinity group that is working to document the diversity and complexity of our own movement. With the activists who choose to participate in our study, we are documenting anti-capitalist anti-authoritarian organizing that has emerged in Québec since the mid-1990s (see our repertoire that is underconstruction http://repertoire.crac-kebec.org/).

One part of this project aims to gain a better understanding of the workcarried out by anti-authoritarian activists specifically against the patriarchy or heteronormativity. We intend to document the three tendencies or cohorts identified so far: radical queer groups, women of colour feminism and radical materialist feminism. Three CRAC teams will work in parallel to carry out these tasks, which will lead, in 2010, to a week-end of reflection bringing together the three tendencies (and others should they emerge as the process unfolds).

I am working on case-study of the radical feminist cohort. In the next few months, I will be conducting individual interviews with radical feminists wanting to participate in our study. All women who self-identify as radical feminist – as defined in the call-out for the 2nd radical feminist meeting to be held in February 2008 (the definition is in appendix) – are encouraged to participate. We want to interview activists who first got involved in radical feminist organizing in Quebec sometime after 1995, be they active today or not and be they attached to anti-authoritarian, union, community, feminist, student or other movements.

If you want to participate, please let me know before January 31st 2008. If you have any questions or if you need more information, please don’t hesitate to contact me!

If you know of any other women who may be interested in this study, please forward the invitation to them.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Jacinthe Leblanc
For the Collectif de Recherche sur l’Autonomie Collective
jacinthe@crac-kebec.org
514-848-2424, extension 8709
Website: http://www.crak-kebec.org

What do we mean by radical feminism?

That aims to eradicate, at their roots, patriarchy, capitalism, hetero-centrism, racism and hierarchy.

The radical feminist movement is diverse and takes on many differentforms. Radical feminists, however, share a commitment to fight, on a dailybasis, for the elimination of patriarchy and all forms of domination without resorting to legislative or social changes that do not address the fundamental causes of patriarchal, capitalist, imperialist oppressions and all forms of authority and hierarchy. Moreover, radical feminists claimthat women have the right to organize autonomous women-only spaces. Below is a short definition of radical feminism. Of course, radical feminism emerges in many different spheres of life (love life, environment, fightagainst racism, maternity, struggle against hetero-centrism, etc.). One simple definition cannot do justice to the diversity of the movement, but it can act as a benchmark that can help us identify what unites us.

Radical: adj. Latin radicalis, from radix, root. The term radical refers to feminist organizing or analysis that goes to the root of women-specific oppression, patriarchy, and that seeks to eliminate it. Radical feminism posits that women are individually and collectively appropriated for the purpose of biological reproduction and economic production. This exploitation intersects with capitalism, racism, hetero-centrism and allother forms of hierarchy and domination.