Learning from decolonial feminist struggles – On the visibilization of femi(ni)cides

Aleida Pinelo Lujan (she/her) is a Mexican doctorate candidate at the faculty of Law, University of Turku. She is working on an interdisciplinary research on femi(ni)cide in the European context, with focus on Germany. She obtained her Master’s degree in the Erasmus Mundus Master’s Program in Gender and Women’s Studies (GEMMA) at the University of Granada and the University of Utrecht. And, completed her Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy in Mexico City. She has been a contributor since 2011 to Feminicidio.net in Spain, and co-founder of the project Feminizidmap in Germany.

Thiago Galván (he/him) is an activist for the transgender community. He works for the conquest of trans rights in educational institutions and political spaces against transphobia and violence. He is part of the Liga LGBTIQ+ de las Provincias, where he represents the secretariat of trans, transvesti, non binary and intersex identities. He is also part of the students’ union, and as such functions as a student representative in the government of the National University of Córdoba. His activist and academic work situates decoloniality as a point of departure for intersectional feminism. From this point of view, he elaborates on the figure of transvesticidio and transfemicidio.

Sohela Surajpal (she/her/they) is a law clerk at the Constitutional Court of South Africa. Last year she completed her Masters of Law in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa at the University of Pretoria's Centre for Human Rights. Her dissertation discussed Prison Abolition as a Decolonial and Human Rights Imperative in Africa. This focus on decolonial studies and the role of police and prisons has made her rethink her approach to feminism and femicide through an abolitionist lens, a topic she has written about on a number of occasions and is keen to discuss more through this forum.

Chair: Julia Manek (she/her) is part of the AK Feminist Geographies in Frankfurt/Main. Being inspired by decolonial feminist work in theory and practice and immerged in different feminist struggles – especially against femi(ni)cides – she is eager to learn from the panellists’ analysis and experiences: Can feminisms unite and form a global movement at all? Or else, to which conditions?

Organisation & Support: Jan Kordes & Stella Schäfer

Autoethnographic Mapping: Jana Bleckmann