Freedom, Rights and Power: Recasting Women’s struggles across the Americas since 1900.
26th-27th April 2013
St Mary’s University College, Twickenham,
London, UK.

This two-day multidisciplinary conference seeks to explore the intersection between gender, revolt
and power across the Americas. Women have been central in stretching the definitions of legal rights,
challenging old concepts of power, and establishing new parameters of freedom across the Americas
throughout the twentieth century. Not all of these struggles have been exclusively for the rights of
women; feminist and womanist interpretations of power structures have in turn encouraged dynamic
protest among many subaltern groups. Our conference seeks to create links between historical,
regional and current movements for change, and to capitalize on a new momentum that has emerged
in relation to discourses of gender and power. We encourage scholars and delegates to think anew
about the ways that women have challenged prevailing systems, to examine women’s efforts to
renegotiate power paradigms and to consider how the past informs the future as we extend our
concepts of freedom within the context of the whole continent. The conference aims to address two
areas which merit further scholarly development. Firstly, we want to challenge the tendency to see the
struggles of women in North America as separate from those struggles in Central and Latin America,
and we aim to encourage comparative transcontinental discussions. Secondly, we wish to encourage
new and interdisciplinary approaches to the issue of women’s agency. This conference will bring
together complementary strands of research on the experiences of women in the Americas, and
include the voices of activists, and will contribute to our understanding of gender, rights and power in
a broad American context.

Potential themes for papers include but are not limited to: labour activism, civil rights,
suffrage, environmental activism, approaches to feminism, developments in feminist theory,
women in government and foreign policy, women in protest organizations, environmental
activism, legal rights, LGBTQ activism, religious and spiritual interests, reproductive rights,
anti-war activity or pacifism, and the development of gendered strategies against sexualized
and racialized violence.

Proposals for papers should not exceed 500 words and must be accompanied by a working
title and CV. Abstracts should be submitted to the organizers by Friday 4th January 2013. A
selection of papers from the conference will be published in an edited volume. We ask
potential contributors to indicate with their abstract as to whether they wish for their
submission to be considered for the edited volume. Complete papers for the edited volume
must be submitted by 30th June 2013.

Submissions should be emailed to the organizers at: freedomrightspower2013@gmail.com
Sinead McEneaney
Imaobong Umoren
Dawn-Marie Gibson
Althea Legal-Miller