Feminism for the World - Paperback

by Lola Olufemi (Author), Françoise Vergès (Author), Silvia Federici (Author)

In the years since #MeToo, misogyny, sexism and gender-based violence have flooded the news and our social media timelines. Anti-privilege politics and intersectionality have entered the mainstream--systematically trolled on one end of the spectrum; embraced, to questionable ends, on the other. But what has this increased visibility entailed, other than the marketisation of the feminist struggle?

Feminism for the World argues that we have been witnessing an erasure of feminism as a long-term tradition, with its many conflicting histories and geographies of struggle elided and forgotten.

In this ground-breaking collection, eight leading international figures of contemporary feminism highlight feminist struggles and traditions from the Global South, presenting feminism as a project that is impossible without international solidarity from the West. In doing so, they revive an authentic internationalism and propose paths for present and future generations.

Authors include Lola Olufemi, Françoise Vergès, Silvia Federici, Verónica Gago, Zahra Ali, Rama Salla Dieng, Sayak Valencia and Djamila Ribeiro. Translated by Fionn Petch and Sophie Lewis.

Author Biography

Lola Olufemi is a black feminist writer and Stuart Hall foundation researcher from London based in the Centre for Research and Education in Art and Media at the University of Westminster. Her work focuses on the uses of the feminist imagination and its relationship to cultural production, political demands and futurity. She is author of Feminism Interrupted: Disrupting Power and Experiments in Imagining Otherwise. She is a member of 'bare minimum', an interdisciplinary anti-work arts collective, and volunteer co-ordinator at the Feminist Library.

Françoise Vergès is a political scientist, activist, historian, film writer, and public educator. She is the author of A Decolonial Feminism, A Feminist History of Violence and A Programme of Absolute Disorder. She is also a senior research fellow at the Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Racism and Racialisation, University College London. She lives in Paris.

Silvia Federici is a feminist scholar and activist based in New York. She is Professor Emerita of Philosophy and International Studies at Hofstra University. She is the author or editor of many influential works, including Caliban and the Witch, Revolution at Point Zero and Beyond the Periphery of the Skin.

Verónica Gago teaches Political Science at the Universidad de Buenos Aires and is a Professor of Sociology at the Instituto de Altos Estudios, Universidad Nacional de San Martin. She is the author of Feminist International and Neoliberalism from Below: Popular Pragmatics and Baroque Economies. She is a feminist activist and member of the Ni Una Menos Collective. She lives in Buenos Aires.

Zahra Ali is Associate Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University, New Jersey. Her research explores the dynamics of women and gender, race and class, as well as social and political movements in relation to Islam(s), the Middle East, and contexts of war and conflict with a focus on contemporary Iraq. She is the author of Women and Gender in Iraq: Between Nation-Building and Fragmentation.

Rama Salla Dieng is a Senegalese feminist, academic and author. She is a Lecturer in African Studies and International Development at the University of Edinburgh. She is the co-editor of Decolonize, Humxnize and Feminist Parenting.

Djamila Ribeiro is a writer and social justice activist, and one of the most influential leaders in the Afro-Brazilian women's rights movement. She is the coordinator of the Feminismos Plurais (Plural Feminisms) initiative, and the author of numerous books, including Where We Stand. She is currently a guest professor at New York University.

Sophie Lewis is an award-winning translator and editor. Working from French and Portuguese, she has translated works by Stendhal, Jules Verne, Marcel Aymé, Violette Leduc, Leïla Slimani, Noémi Lefebvre and Annie Ernaux, among others. Lewis's translations have been shortlisted for the Scott Moncrieff and Republic of Consciousness prizes, longlisted for the International Booker Prize, and won the 2022 French-American Foundation's non-fiction prize.

Fionn Petch is a Scottish translator with a doctorate in philosophy from the National University of Mexico. As a translator, he has translated fiction, poetry, drama and children's books. He also works on books and exhibition catalogues on art and architecture. Among his noted translations are A Straggly Smile by Vanessa Saint Cyr, The Distance Between Us by Renato Cisneros and Fireflies by Luis Sagasti.