Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals (IBEI)

September 15-16, 2025

While scholarship on anti-gender politics is well established, with rich analyses both at the national and the regional level with regard to Western, Central, and Eastern Europe as well as the United States and Latin America (i.e., Butler 2024; Corrêa 2022; Graff & Korolczuk 2022; Kuhar & Paternotte 2017; Krizsán & Roggeband 2021; Verloo & Paternotte 2018), this concept has been unevenly mobilized to address challenges to gender equality and LGBTQI* rights in the Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA) region.

On the one hand, there is a burgeoning literature examining anti-gender politics in Turkey, notably following the country’s withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention in 2021 as well as the recent adoption of legislative regulations restricting abortion and trans rights, bans on pride marches, and the harassment of feminist academics, among others (i.e., Kolluoglu 2024; Özkazanç 2024; Özbay and Ipekci 2024; Özkazanç 2024; Unal 2024). On the other hand, this concept is rarely deployed to study similar developments in other countries in the region (for an exception, see Almazidi 2024).

To address this gap in the literature and open up a conversation about the specificities of anti-gender politics in the SWANA region, the COST Action CA23149 - Democratization at stake? Comparing Anti-Gender Politics in CEE and NME countries (Antigender-Politics) and the Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals (IBEI) are organizing a workshop that seeks to gather researchers and practitioners working on these issues. We particularly welcome interdisciplinary, intersectional (attuned to the ways in which gender interacts with race, class, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, etc.), and decolonial analyses that situate anti-gender politics in the SWANA region within broader historical, political, economic, and social dynamics and power relations.

Special topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Comparative analyses of anti-gender movements across different SWANA countries
• The intersection of anti-gender politics with state authoritarianism
• Rollback and crackdown on funding for gender equality
• Restrictions to sexual and reproductive rights
• The targeting of the LGBTQI* community
• Anti-gender attacks in academia
• Feminist and queer resistances to anti-gender attacks
• The role of CSOs in resisting anti-gender politics
• Transnational networks and local mobilizations
• Digital activism and anti-gender movements
• Mental health and burnout of activists and social movement leaders

The workshop will take place on September 15-16, 2025, at the Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals (IBEI), in Barcelona. The meeting will include a hybrid plenary session open to all COST Action members, as well as in-person thematic sessions for workshop participants.

To take part in the workshop, interested participants should send a brief statement (max. 500 word) explaining how they would contribute to the meeting, their experience working on these issues and, if applicable, previous relevant publications to sgalan@ibei.org, tayhan@ibei.org, and cgeha@ibei.org by May 15, 2015. Accepted participants will be notified by the end of May.

We are particularly interested in including the voices of scholars and practitioners in the SWANA region or those from the region who are currently in the diaspora, and welcome young and early scholars’ participation. In the selection of participants, we will take into consideration the theoretical and/or methodological contribution of the participant, regional representation, and the adoption of interdisciplinary, intersectional, and decolonial approaches in the proposal.

Workshop participants will be reimbursed for their travel costs and per diem expenses following COST Action’s guidelines.

References:

• Almazidi, Nour. 2024. “Against Our Fetrah: On the Epistemic and Material Implications of Anti-Gender Politics in the Gulf.” In A. Holvikivi et al. (eds.), Transnational Anti-Gender Politics: Feminist Solidarity in Times of Global Attacks (pp. 203-224). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Butler, Judith. 2024. Who’s Afraid of Gender? New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
• Corrêa, Sonia (ed.). 2022. Anti-gender politics in Latin America in the pandemic context. Associação Brasileira Interdisciplinas de Aids - ABIA.
• Graff, Agnieszka, and Elżbieta Korolczuk. 2022. Anti-Gender Politics in the Populist Moment. Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge.
• Kolluoglu, Poyraz. 2024. “Unveiling Istanbul’s Intersectional Alliance: Unravelling Turkey’s Anti-Gender Backlash.” Cultural Dynamics 36 (4): 438–57.
• Krizsán, Andrea, and Conny Roggeband. 2021. Politicizing Gender and Democracy in the Context of the Istanbul Convention. Cham: Springer International Publishing.
• Kuhar, Roman, and David Paternotte, eds. 2017. Anti-Gender Campaigns in Europe: Mobilizing against Equality. London ; New York: Rowman & Littlefield International, Ltd.
• Özbay, Cenk, and Ilkan Can Ipekci. 2024. “State-Led Antigender Politics, Islamism, and the University.” Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 20 (1): 89–110.
• Özkazanç, Alev. 2024. “A Crisis of Masculine Power: The Emergence and Trajectory of the Anti-Gender Movement in Turkey.” In A. Holvikivi et al. (eds.), Transnational Anti-Gender Politics: Feminist Solidarity in Times of Global Attacks (pp. 35-53). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Unal, Didem. 2024. “The Variety of Anti-Gender Alliances and Democratic Backsliding in Turkey: Fault Lines around Opposition to ‘Gender Ideology’ and Their Political Implications.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 26 (1): 6–30.
• Verloo, Mieke, and David Paternotte. 2018. “The Feminist Project under Threat in Europe.” Politics and Governance 6 (3): 1–5.