BY
As a South feminist collective that has been trying to organize outside of conventional models, RESURJ has always been committed to having critical and progressive conversations about funding feminist movements. This is rooted in our understanding that the social, cultural, economic and environmental dimensions of our lives, world and rights are intrinsically connected. Over the last few years, we have been more involved in resourcing discussions and spaces through the Alliance for Feminist Movements (AFM) and what we’ve been observing over and over again is that the barrier to entry is unjustly high for those who are most affected by how money moves — or does not move — across feminist movements. The most recent damning evidence of this are movement actors who have lost political and financial support or have been threatened by the potential loss of the same for standing in solidarity with Palestine. More long-term evidence includes how foreign and domestic policies restrict funding flows to countries and territories — with Palestine, Libya, Sudan, Western Sahara, West Papua, India, China being just a few examples.
The feminist funding ecosystem contains multitudes, with donor governments, private philanthropy and feminist and women’s funds often sharing a goal of increasing resources for feminist movements but being starkly different in terms of politics, protocols and proximities to power. However, engaging in discussions and producing and sharing knowledge and learnings around resourcing remains a core mandate for them and rightfully so. And even as a lot of such discussions, learnings and positions acknowledge the importance of feminist activists and formations being an active part of those, it is very few who have the capacity — whether in knowledge, political education, time, money and power — to do so. And even when we’re interested in engaging in those discussions and spaces and expanding on our call to “support movement-building by funding various forms of organizing in a responsive, non-conditional, long-term, and sustained manner”, the power dynamics between the funders and the funded are so unequal and precarious that there’s hesitation, trepidation, self-censorship and a lack of empowerment that feminist activists and formations experience.
So where do we go from here? That’s the question we posed to younger South feminists to creatively tackle in their submissions to this special edition of Reflections on Our Countries. As with all our organizing and movement building, the best way we can build power for ourselves within the feminist funding ecosystem is by building critical analysis and solidarity that is grounded in our countries and territories and so we’ve invited these young feminists you’re about to read to you to write about what is working for them, what is not working, what are they experimenting with, what kind of structural shifts and changes they (we) need, and how/where do we do our collective political education about the sources, flows and processes of how money is moved to and within feminist movements.
We wish you an enjoyable, thought-provoking read.