Women as "the people". Reflections on black protests as a counterweight to authoritarian populism from a transnational perspective.

Abstract

Taking it starting point in what Chantal Mouffe has called Europe's "populist moment" this article investigates the Polish feminist mass-movement called The Black Protests. Although its initial outburst was a reaction against a law proposal for a further restriction of the country‟s already strict abortion laws, it quickly gained momentum and grew into a larger popular struggle for democracy, both nationally and internationally, in Europe and beyond. Drawing on the theories of Ernesto Laclau and Joan Scott, the article investigates how the movement swiftly began to articulate a broad range of different political demands, as well as how such demands were effectively communicated and distributed  online through affectively laden slogans and images across national borders. Based on this, the article argues on the one hand that the movement follows a "populist logic of articulation", but also how it,  through "solidarity echoes" inscribe their struggle both backward in time to previous feminist struggles, and to feminist struggles in other parts of the world. Such solidarity echoes, in turn, constitutes a crucial element for the present transnational feminist  movement – a movement that today offers a significant counterforce to existing trends of rightwing populism, illiberalism and authoritarianism on both sides of the Atlantic.