A feminist exploration #7: Constructing “security” during a pandemic
Channel: Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung European Union
Date: 2021-07-15

More info: https://calendar.boell.de/en/feminist-exploration-security

Join us for 7th edition of “A feminist exploration”, organised by the European Feminist Platform (https://eu.boell.org/en/european-feminist-platform). This time, we will shed light on how questions of safety and security have been radically redefined during the Covid-19 pandemic. Together with Weronika Grzebalska and Jin Haritaworn, we will explore different processes of securitization as well as the alternative understandings of safety that are emerging in marginalized communities. The discussion range is set in the context of Central and Eastern Europe and Germany.
During the pandemic, many states used the military and the police provide essential social services. There was a shift within the military from national security towards human security. State practices, like the police interventions, failed to protect racialised individuals and communities but prioritized the white heteronormative middle class. State and police have actively targeted racialised people, e.g. through the practice of racial profiling, in the name of public health and safety.
Weronika Grzebalska will explore what we can learn about militarization of a pandemic response through a critical feminist perspective in the context of Central and Eastern Europe. She argues that the systemic underfunding of the largely feminised health sector and the dissolution of 'soft' civil defence created voids which were then patched with military assistance. Jin Haritaworn, on the other hand, asks who is and who is not made safe by policing during the Covid-19 pandemic. They will discuss the alternative/transformative strategies for safety articulated by queer migrants, Black people, and people of colour in the German context.
This discussion series is powered by and created for feminist scholars, activists and policy makers – in Europe and beyond.