Affect into action : feminist movements and the production of safer spaces: a comparative research between Rome and Madrid

The research explores the production of feminist spaces as safer spaces in urban contexts. How do feminist movements imagine, produce and preserve safer spaces? To search for an answer, I engaged with participatory action research (PAR) and constructivist grounded theory method (CGTM). In the cities of Rome and Madrid, that share general socio-economic, cultural and political features (Kantola and Lombardo 2017), feminist movements, as well, share similar frames, claims, and repertoires of actions. In each city, I selected three types of feminist spaces: women’s houses and/or spaces of equality (Casa Internazionale delle donne in Rome and Espacios de Igualdad in Madrid); longstanding feminist spaces which host a multiplicity of projects and direct social action (Lucha Y Siesta in Rome and Eskalera Karakola in Madrid); radical transfeminist, lesbian, and queer occupations (the space of Cagne Sciolte in Rome and Plataforma Encuentros Bolleros in Madrid). By searching for the meaning of safety, CGTM drove me to the work on affect and emotions that takes place within feminist spaces. Affects, as gradients of intensity and vital forces, work as 1) a channel of mediation between cognition and bodies; 2) a tool for political elaboration; 3) a competence in action. The confidence with inner feelings (that is usually considered unpolitical) makes people feel comfortable and at ease. People are not trapped in rituals of interaction and the performance of social encounters. Emotions can be manifested, elaborated on, transformed into action (Gould 2009). Affects do not enrich or empower political action, but they are the very matter of it (Massumi 2015). The capacity to name, negotiate and reverberate affects has transformative effects (Ahmed 2006), both at the individual and collective level. The work on collective affects allows feminist spaces to pursue their search for social change, with continuity (Taylor 1989, Whittier 1995), contention (McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly 2001), and innovation (Staggenborg 1989, 1995). In the empirical analysis, I engage with the concept of affects at three levels. At the macro level, by investigating how spaces relate with the structure of economic models and institutions, by performing alternative models and dealing with national, local and collective actors. At the meso level, by exploring the mobilisation of affects in collective action. At the micro level of actors, by looking at how individual mobilisation process and long-term political participation are bound up with affects. By drawing on affect theory, social movement studies and feminist theory, the research argues that the work on affect and emotions within feminist spaces has transformative effects, by increasing the potential for collective action.