Tuesday, June 25, 2013
C3.17 (Oudemanhuispoort)
The paper addresses the dynamic inclusion /exclusion of women and minorities in the European Public Sphere (EPS) focusing on the situated and contested meanings and framings of gender and ethnicity/race influenced by national histories, institutions and culture. It is inspired by reflections in the EUROSPHERE project where intersectionality was used as the key concept for analysing relations between gender and ethnicity/race (http://eurospheres.org/). The intersectionality approach can contribute to illuminate the particular ways in which political actors formulate interactions between gender and ethnic minorities within and across the selected European countries. The main argument is that a contextual approach to intersectionality contributes to identify what kind of inequalities need to be conceptualized; who the excluded minorities is; as well as the articulation of the particular intersections by various political actors in particular locations. In Europe the religious and cultural accommodation of the excluded migrant minorities has become one of the main policy problems. In a number of European countries, where gender equality has become a national value, it is often used by both women and men on the Left and the Right as a national demarcation, which constructs a borderline between ‘us and them‘, the ‘white’ majority and ethnic minorities. The European nation states face similar problems with migration and mobility across borders and citizens articulate conflicts between national and transnational politics of belongings. The paper suggests that the common problems require transnational solutions and solidarity. Moreover, the paper explores how major political actors within the European Public Sphere (EPS) representing selected political parties and social movements/NGOs across Europe articulate relations between gender and ethno-national diversity. It suggests that articulations of gender and ethno-national minorities have become a major concern for mainstream political actors as well as for civil society organizations, including women‘s and migrant organizations. This concern with gender equality contrasts with intersections between ethnicity and class, which tend to be neglected in most European countries.
