Feminism and Protest Camps

"A smart and much-needed collection that takes seriously the feminist politics of encampment. This collection critically examines the feminist possibilities of occupation and how this work can be a portal to a new world or a cul de sac reproducing the worst of us." Akwugo Emejulu, University of Warwick

“I rarely see feminist scholarship on social movements comprehensively consider the settler colonial, cisheteronormative, and otherwise exclusionary politics of protest sites. So, it is refreshing, urgent, and thrilling to read Eschle and Bartlett's carefully curated book. This co-edited collection privileges an intersectional feminist interrogation of protest camps with significant focus on the world-building struggles and strategies of indigenous, Black, and various precariously positioned communities. Each chapter is theoretically robust and steeped in rich details that are both troubling and enlivening to read. It is also a very cohesive book, a hard feat indeed given the wide variety of the case studies and author positionalities, that asks us to constantly rethink not only feminist politics but also how we use feminist frameworks to understand protest and resistance. I cannot wait to assign this book to my students!” Meghana Nayak, Pace University

"Today when feminism is under attack everywhere, this book offers a rich and nuanced reminder of its vital and ongoing presence in contemporary women-only and mixed gender protest camps across several countries in the Global North and South. The authors’ explorations of protest camps as simultaneously sites of gendered politics - where inequalities of power and gendered divisions of labour and spatial location get reproduced and where historically racialized, gendered, and sexed bodies are vulnerable to violence - and of feminist activism where those politics are contested and reconfigured is both sobering and exciting. Just the kind of 'skepticism of the intellect and optimism of the will' demonstrated by the chants of 'Women, Life, Freedom' in Iran and elsewhere." Manisha Desai, University of Connecticut

"Over forty years since the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp was at its peak, and with protest camps now firmly established in the global repertoire of social movements, this collection is a timely and important intervention in the analysis of feminist political action. Ranging across the world and over time, the contributors provide vivid accounts of numerous instances in which women have formed communities of resistance outside conventional politics. This is a must-read book for everyone interested in contemporary feminism and methods of collective action." Sasha Roseneil, University of Sussex