UNMASK THE BRAND, RECLAIM THE RIGHTS!

BEYOND ANTI-GENDER & ANTI-RIGHTS: REBRANDING STATES AND ENGINEERING CITIZENS IN THE SWANA REGION

This is a research project by AWID and RESURJ, offering a feminist analysis on authoritarianism in the SWANA region on how states sell an image of progress abroad while repressing citizens at home – and the global systems that fuel it.

Why This Report Matters NOW

In the SWANA region, states are seeking new ways to cling to power. This report maps two mutually reinforcing technologies of governance in the SWANA region: 

• States are capturing global capital at the expense of women, LGBTQI+, migrant workers and indigenous communities, while punishing dissent. 
• The engineering of the “ideal citizen” as a tool for authoritarian control at home

The findings reveal how surveillance, criminalization, and the persecution of activists are normalized and concealed by states that brand themselves as tolerant and progressive. It also traces the ways these technologies are rooted in colonial structures and sustained through global capitalist systems.

At a time when the SWANA region continues to be understood through reductive and colonial tropes, the report offers a framework that nuances the concepts of “anti-rights” and “anti-gender”. 

Rather than sorting states into binary boxes of “pro-” and “anti-rights”, the analysis provides insights into the complexities and contradictions present in authoritarianism today. 

For feminist and social justice movements working in authoritarian contexts, this report can be read as a source of analytical and political strength to help connect our feminist, anti-racist, migrant, environmental, disabled, queer and trans struggles that are usually kept apart.

You can download the English report below, Arabic and French versions are coming soon!