RHEA/EDGE RESEARCH SEMINAR, BY MARISKA JUNG
Species-inclusive intersectionality: a way forward for political cooperation between animal and migration politics in Europe?
| Mariska Jung is a PhD student at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (BE). She is based at the Department of Political Sciences and affiliated to RHEA, the university’s research center on gender, diversity and intersectionality. In addition, she is a member of the Race-Religion Constellation research hub at Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Jung’s research is situated at the crossroads of political theory, critical animal studies, critical race theory and gender and queer scholarship. She earned her master’s degree with cum laude from SOAS University of London (UK) and two bachelor’s degrees with cum laude from the University of Amsterdam (NL) |
* Image by Little Bird, Dreaming |
During this seminar, PhD candidate Mariska Jung will introduce a part of her ongoing research on species-inclusive intersectionality and the possible relevance of such a concept for animal and migration politics in Europe.
At first sight, relative newcomers on the political stage such as the animal party DierAnimal in Belgium and the ‘migrant party’ DENK in the Netherlands seem to be worlds apart in their political views and the issues they represent. While some migration parties ground their political analysis in intersectionality, animal parties generally refrain from any deep engagement with issues pertaining to gender and sexual diversity or racism. Nevertheless, both types of parties express a fundamental critique of the current parameters of our social and economic fabric and call for radical change. They may even find topical congruence in their respective concern for environmentalism and migration in phenomena such as climate change refugees or the substandard working conditions of (often migrant) labourers in slaughterhouses. This begs the question, how can these parties be brought closer in ideological terms? Is there a way to envision a uniting political horizon that bridges their distances?
The aim of Jung’s research is to flesh out the theoretical (im)possibility of species-inclusive intersectionality so as to identify the promises and limits of such a political analysis for possible cooperation between animal and migration politics.
*Attendance is free but registration is required (Please, fill in the form HERE). Participants will receive an invitation for the Teams meeting the day before.