Book Discussion: Feminist Perspective on Russia’s War in Ukraine: Hear Our Voices

Feminist Perspective on Russia’s War in Ukraine: Hear Our Voices is a unique collection by feminist scholars and practitioners from Ukraine and the wider Central and Eastern European region. The book offers a timely and much needed localised perspective on the gendered nature and impacts of the decade-long Russia’s war in Ukraine. This online event brings together several of the authors to discuss feminist knowledge production in times of war, the war’s bodily dimensions, local visions of decolonial feminist peace, Ukraine’s Women, Peace and Security agenda amidst the full-scale war or responses to the war via feminist foreign policies.

Speakers: 

• Maryna Shevtsova is a Senior post-doctoral FWO Fellow at KU Leuven. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Humboldt University, Berlin, and is a Fulbright and Swedish Institute Alumna. Shevtsova is a co-founder of Equal Opportunities Platform and received the 2022 Emma Goldman Award for her work as a feminist scholar and human rights activist.
• Dafna Rachok is a medical and political anthropologist who researches global health interventions, medical humanitarianism, and patient subjectivities in Eastern Europe. Her current project, titled Affective Belonging: Vulnerable Groups’ Political Subjectivity and HIV in Ukraine explores what underpins the strength of a public health system in a supposedly weak post-socialist state.
• Hanna Manoilenko is a feminist scholar and activist from Ukraine, currently pursuing a PhD at the School of Social and Political Science, Department of Arts, the University of Melbourne. She is a member of Ukrainian feminist organizations, FemSolution, and the Ukrainian Feminist Network for Freedom and Democracy. Her professional experience includes working with women’s funds, research assistance, and research coordination.
• Bénédicte Santoire is a feminist researcher and consultant. She is a PhD candidate in International Relations at the University of Ottawa, Canada. Her doctoral thesis focuses on the implementation of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda in Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, and Armenia.
• Oksana Potapova is a PhD Candidate at the Department of Gender Studies at the London School of Economics and Political Sciences. She is a long-time practitioner of community theatre and feminist pedagogy, which she has used to advocate for women’s rights affected by the war in Ukraine.
• Míla O’Sullivan is a Researcher at the Institute of International Relations in Prague and a Lecturer at Charles University in Prague with primary interest in gender and war, the Women, Peace and Security agenda and feminist foreign policy. She focuses on Central and Eastern Europe, the Russian war in Ukraine, NATO and addresses decolonial issues and East-South-West hierarchies in feminist knowledge production.