CO-CREATING INCLUSIVE INTERSECTIONAL DEMOCRATIC SPACES ACROSS EUROPE

ongoing

The objective of this project is to re-kindle trust in democracy and to re-invigorate engagement with democratic institutions and values in Europe. We plan to achieve this by co-creating solutions to the crisis of democracy, by designing and implementing strategies, which counter opposition to equality and democracy and by supporting citizens and activists working in this field. CCINDLE works directly with feminist grassroots activists and institutional actors, feminist and pro-democratic media, young Europeans, philanthropic organizations thinktanks, and gender professionals. We co-create knowledge on i) anti-gender campaigns and how they challenge democracy, particularly through political violence and alternative knowledge production; ii) futures of society envisioned in feminist theories and how they relate to democracy in Europe with respect to intersectional justice, inclusion, and participation; iii) feminist movement and institutional responses to anti-gender and other anti-democratic forces. We focus on seven European countries with different social and political backgrounds, and the EU level. This knowledge allows us to better understand everyday practices of democracy and how the current backlash resonates with broader exclusionary tendencies and fundamental problems of the Western democracy model. We assume that the problem is not anti-gender movements alone but also the roots they have in the exclusionary features of contemporary European democracies, the way in which they are normatively designed and function. CCINDLE provides for concrete approaches and tools to more effectively fight anti-gender and other anti-democratic forces, support the quality of democracy, and make democracy across Europe more resilient and inclusive. We put these approaches and tools into practice through co-creating actions including student juries, a network of intersectional feminist media across Europe, gender café’s, blogs, and other networking/dissemination activities.