Description
Scholars of politics and international relations have recently seen a burgeoning interest in how right-wing populist actors stage security threats. In contrast, this paper investigates how feminist movements resist right-wing populist constructions of (in)security by introducing counter-populist discourses and aesthetics of security. I analyse the case of Poland, which presents two competing populist performances of (in)security: The March of Independence and the All-Poland Women’s Strike. The former is an annual event during which right-wing groups march together to symbolically defend Polish national identity against its perceived enemies. The latter refers to a series of feminist performances during the 2020-1 protests against the near-total ban on abortion. The paper draws on Judith Butler’s theory of the performative politics of public assembly, which elucidates how the political subject of ‘the people’ can emerge as bodies come together to make security demands through both verbal and non-verbal acts. I argue that the pro-choice movement used the vehicle of populist performance to subvert the exclusionary constructions of (in)security by right-wing populists. In the process, it introduced a different conception of security in the struggle for a ‘livable life’. The result helps scholars to reimagine the relationship between populism, security and feminist politics.
