Conference

Anarchism and Sexuality in Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries

Deadline - 30.06.2009
Anarchism and Sexuality conference, Leeds, 19th February 2010.

The aim of this conference is to explore the connections between anarchist thought and activism in regions of extensive uptake of anarchist ideas, e.g. Spain, Portugal and Latin America, with respect to an important area of anarchist ideas and practice: sexuality.This is an under-studied area in anarchist historiography and other disciplines, such as history of labour movements, and this is particularly the case in some understudied countries within these regions (especially Portugal and Brazil). As areas with large anarchist movements, they offer telling examples of how anarchism engaged with this important question.Sexuality was taken up by anarchist movements as an example of their attempt to interconnect cultural, social and economic questions and forms of exploitation and as a response to broad issues of power differentials between men and women in society, the role of the Catholic Church and as an attempt to live and experience cultural change as part of the overall challenge anarchist movements have provided against capitalist social relations.This is relevant not just on a historical level but also has relevance to current debates on the relations between politics, sexuality, cultural change and identities. We invite papers on historical as well as present day intersections between anarchism and sexuality, and their implications for anarchist or libertarian practice. We would also encourage contributions on Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking Asia and Africa and their respective anarchist movements.In addition to providing a forum for the discussion of the legacy and the present of anarchist thought, the conference aims to allow for a critical engagement with current theories that derive from the realities of countries generally unknown in British critical thinking, political science and sociology, not to speak of gender and sexuality studies.Please send abstracts of no more than 200 words or expressions of interest to Gwendolyn Windpassinger (G.Windpassinger@lboro.ac.uk) or Richard Cleminson (R.M.Cleminson@leeds.ac.uk) by Tuesday, 30th of June, 2009.

Richard Cleminson (University of Leeds)
Gwendolyn Windpassinger (Loughborough University)