G@W-CREA Podcast Series, Episode 3: How can we rethink language and terminology to shape new strategies, narratives and our advocacy?

The Gender at Work Podcast

Language is often the medium through which exclusion, stigma and invisibilisation of certain groups, experiences and identities is normalised and justified. This podcast discusses whether and why language and terminology matter, how new words and frames can be created in diverse cultural contexts to claim power, presence and voice, and analyses the hijacking of progressive feminist language by conservative political movements.

Participants in this episode include: Aruna Rao (moderator); Jayanthi Kuru, Independent Consultant, Sri Lanka; Shalini Singh and Srilatha Batliwala of CREA, India; Rudo Chigudu Warrier, Artist-Activist, Zimbabwe; and Cynthia Rothschild, Independent Consultant, USA.

Gender at Work and CREA co-developed a podcast series on feminists rethinking politics and resistance, reimagining change and transformation and rebooting struggles and movements. We asked participants at CREA’s Re-conference in Nepal - artists, performers, writers, activists, policy makers, film makers and many others from the disability rights, sex worker rights, environmental rights, sexual and reproductive rights and queer movements from around the world - to reflect on a series of provocative questions: How are you responding to criminalization? How are you standing up to threats to critical thinking, freedom of expression, right to organize and protest, and suppression of rights? How are artists, activists and movements on the margins addressing issues of exclusion and inclusion in more intersectional ways? In the face of progressive terminology, how can we rethink language and terminology so as to shape new strategies, narratives and advocacy? Why and how do we need to reimagine ideas around consent, pleasure and danger? How can we reboot cross- movement alliance building for greater collective voice and impact?

All episodes were recorded at the CREA Re-conference in Nepal in April 2019.