Freedom, Rights and Power: Recasting Women’s struggles across the Americas
since 1900

26th-27th April 2013
St Mary’s University College, Twickenham, London, UK.

This two-day multidisciplinary conference seeks to explore the intersection
between gender, revolt and power across the Americas. Women have been central
in stretching the definitions of legal rights, challenging old concepts of
power, and establishing new parameters of freedom across the Americas
throughout the twentieth century. Not all of these struggles have been
exclusively for the rights of women; feminist and womanist interpretations of
power structures have in turn encouraged dynamic protest among many subaltern
groups. Our conference seeks to create links between historical, regional and
current movements for change, and to capitalize on a new momentum that has
emerged in relation to discourses of gender and power. We encourage scholars
and delegates to think anew about the ways that women have challenged
prevailing systems, to examine women’s efforts to renegotiate power paradigms
and to consider how the past informs the future as we extend our concepts of
freedom within the context of the whole continent. The conference aims to
address two areas which merit further scholarly development. Firstly, we want
to challenge the tendency to see the struggles of women in North America as
separate from those struggles in Central and Latin America, and we aim to
encourage comparative transcontinental discussions. Secondly, we wish to
encourage new and interdisciplinary approaches to the issue of women’s
agency. This conference will bring together complementary strands of research
on the experiences of women in the Americas, and include the voices of
activists, and will contribute to our understanding of gender, rights and power
in a broad American context.

Potential themes for papers include but are not limited to: labour activism,
civil rights, suffrage, environmental activism, approaches to feminism,
developments in feminist theory, women in government and foreign policy, women
in protest organizations, environmental activism, legal rights, LGBTQ activism,
religious and spiritual interests, reproductive rights, anti-war activity or
pacifism, and the development of gendered strategies against sexualized and
racialized violence.

Proposals for papers should not exceed 500 words and must be accompanied by a
working title and CV. Abstracts should be submitted to the organizers by Friday
4th January 2013. A selection of papers from the conference will be published
in an edited volume. We ask potential contributors to indicate with their
abstract as to whether they wish for their submission to be considered for the
edited volume. Complete papers for the edited volume must be submitted by 30th
June 2013.

Submissions should be emailed to the organizers at:
freedomrightspower2013@gmail.com

Sinead McEneaney
Imaobong Umoren
Dawn-Marie Gibson
Althea Legal-Miller

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