Reclaiming feminist futures : co-opted and progressive politics in a neoliberal age

Eschle, Catherine and Maiguashca, Bice (2014) Reclaiming feminist futures : co-opted and progressive politics in a neoliberal age. Political Studies, 62 (3). pp. 634-651. ISSN 0032-3217 (https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9248.12046)

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Abstract

This article engages with the influential narrative about the co-optation of feminism in conditions of neoliberalism put forward by prominent feminist thinkers Nancy Fraser, Hester Eisenstein and Angela McRobbie. After drawing out the twin visions of 'progressive' feminist politics that undergird this narrative — cached out in terms of either the retrieval of past socialist feminist glories or personal reinvention — we subject to critical scrutiny both the substantive claims made and the conceptual scaffolding invoked. We argue that the proleptic imaginings of all three authors, in different ways, are highly circumscribed in terms of the recommended agent, agenda and practices of progressive politics, and clouded by conceptual muddle over the meanings of 'left', 'radical' and 'progressive'. Taken together, these problems render the conclusions of Fraser, Eisenstein and McRobbie at best unconvincing and at worst dismissive of contemporary feminist efforts to challenge neoliberalism. We end the paper by disentangling and redefining left, radical and progressive and by sketching a contrasting substantive vision of progressive feminist politics enabled by this reconceptualisation.

ORCID iDs

Eschle, Catherine ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4566-9176 and Maiguashca, Bice;
  • Item type:Article
    ID code:42902
    Dates:
    Date
    Event
    October 2014
    Published
    7 June 2013
    Published Online
    Notes:This is the accepted version of the following article: Eschle, C. and Maiguashca, B. (2014), Reclaiming Feminist Futures: Co-opted and Progressive Politics in a Neo-liberal Age. Political Studies, 62: 634–651. doi: 10.1111/1467-9248.12046, which has been published in final form at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9248.12046/abstract.
    Subjects:Political Science > Political theory
    Department:Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (HaSS) > Government and Public Policy > Politics
    Depositing user: Pure Administrator
    Date deposited:17 Feb 2013 21:30
    Last modified:16 Nov 2024 01:06
    Related URLs:
    URI:https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/id/eprint/42902
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