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29Feminism and the Power of Love: Interdisciplinary InterventionsRoutledge. 2017.The affective turn -- Violence against women: perspectives and strategies -- Notes -- References -- PART III: Togetherness and its forms -- 7. Feminist visions and socio-political meanings of non-monogamous love -- Contemporary bonding, plurality of love -- Consensual plurality and sustainability of bonding -- Notes -- References -- 8. The invisible ties We share: A relational analysis of the contemporary loving couple -- The semantics of love and the We -- Love in situation: the WeLR in motion …Read more
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15Why we keep separating the ‘inseparable’: Dialecticizing intersectionalityEuropean Journal of Women's Studies 24 (2): 114-127. 2017.Disputes about how to understand intersectional relations often pivot around the tension between separateness and inseparability, where some scholars emphasize the need to separate between different intersectional categories while others claim they are inseparable. In this article the author takes issue with the either/or thinking that underpins an unnecessary and unproductive polarization in the debate over the in/separability of intersectional categories. Drawing on Roy Bhaskar’s dialectical c…Read more
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15The naturalistic turn in feminist theory: A Marxist-realist contributionFeminist Theory 14 (1): 3-19. 2013.After a time dominated by nature-phobia, a naturalistic turn is emerging within feminist theory. Welcoming this new theoretical embrace of nature and sympathising with its insistence that nature is not feminism’s enemy, this article nevertheless points to some problematic features of this turn. Focusing on Elizabeth Grosz’s postmodernist readings of Charles Darwin, I suggest that their emphasis of nature’s dynamic, indeterminate and enabling qualities both implies a politically unmotivated glori…Read more
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17This book marks a pivotal moment in the intensifying dialogue between the philosophical approach of critical realism and the fields of feminist theory and gender research. During the last three decades, these fields have been decisively influenced by poststructuralist perspectives. As such perspectives are increasingly being challenged, this book argues that critical realism is able to serve as a fruitful resource for carving out new paths for feminist theorizing and research. At the same time, …Read more
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26Critical Realism, Gender and Feminism: Exchanges, Challenges, SynergiesJournal of Critical Realism 15 (5): 433-439. 2016.
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21Nature, Love and the Limits of Male Power1Journal of Critical Realism 14 (3): 325-332. 2015.It has long been taboo for feminist theorists to draw on notions of nature in their conceptualizations of gender relations. Objecting to this nature-phobia, I argue that we need to anchor our social theories in explicit notions of the natural necessities on which any social structure draws and must ultimately accommodate. Such a reference to a ‘natural ontological order’ is needed not only for explaining how power structures can get a hold over people, but also for specifying the ways in which t…Read more
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81A defence of the category ‘women’Feminist Theory 12 (1): 23-37. 2011.Against influential strands of feminist theory, I argue that there is nothing essentialist or homogenising about the category ‘women’. I show that both intersectional claims that it is impossible to separate out the ‘woman part’ of women, and deconstructionist contentions that the category ‘women’ is a fiction, rest on untenable meta-theoretical assumptions. I posit that a more fruitful way of approaching this disputed category is to treat it as an abstraction. Drawing on the philosophical frame…Read more
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30The dominant and its constitutive other: Feminist theorizations of love, power and gendered selvesJournal of Critical Realism 15 (1): 1-20. 2016.In this article I explore love's relation to gendered power asymmetries by comparing Anna Jónasdóttir's, Jessica Benjamin's and Teresa Brennan's respective theorizations of this theme. Despite the considerable differences between these feminist frameworks, they can all be read in terms of what I call the figure of the Dominant and its Constitutive Other. This refers to the contradictory relation whereby the powerful and ‘independent’ existence of the one is premised on that which is other to it,…Read more
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60Love – exploitable resource or ‘No-lose situation’? : Reconciling Jónasdóttir’s feminist view with Bhaskar’s philosophy of meta-realityJournal of Critical Realism 10 (4): 419-441. 2011.In this article I attempt to reconcile two seemingly conflicting theorisations of love, the one elaborated by Roy Bhaskar as part of his philosophy of meta-Reality and Anna G. Jónasdóttir’s historical materialist-radical feminist theory of love power. While Bhaskar emphasises the essentially non-dual character of love, envisioning it as a ‘no-lose situation’, Jónasdóttir stresses the antagonistic features structuring love relations by conceptualising love as a productive power that men tend to e…Read more