Feminismos hoy. Contribuciones filosóficas contra las violencias, la discriminación y las exclusiones. “Una cronica metafilosófica” (forthcoming 2025)
16 January 2025
By Giovanna MiolliIn «Ideas. Revista de filosofía moderna y contemporánea», Ragif Ediciones, 2025.
We are people who spend a large part of our lives in the academic environment, splitting our time among lectures, meetings, a lot of bureaucracy, research and scientific events. We attend congresses (also) because this activity is part of our duties. However, there are few meetings that have the potential to change the way we do our work from the next day or the day itself. The congress Feminismos hoy. Contribuciones filosóficas contra las violencias, la discriminación y las exclusiones (Feminisms Today. Philosophical Contributions Against Violence, Discrimination and Exclusion), which took place at the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras of the Universidad de Buenos Aires from 31 July to 4 August 2023, was one such opportunity for change.
Why and how was it possible? Where does the desire for transformation come from? It arises from a will for improving the social conditions in which we live. In other words, it emerges because, as bell hooks wrote, “[we want] to make the hurt go away” (Theory as Liberatory Practice, 1991). This pain is named in the conference’s title: violence, discrimination, exclusion. These are phenomena that also cross the philosophical space, far from being a world of ‘pure’ (beautiful) ideas. Realising this, we ask ourselves: how can we generate a transformation in our way of thinking and acting philosophy? How can we make the pain go away? Based on these questions, I will propose a ‘metaphilosophical chronicle’ of the Feminismos hoy congress. I mean by this expression a critical narration of how the event was also an opportunity for a conscious change not only in our theories, but also in our philosophical practices.
In this reasoned chronicle, the selection of certain aspects is inevitable in the face of the congress’ content richness. Over the course of five days, between an inaugural and a closing act, there were eight plenary panels, twenty-one thematic symposia divided into several sessions, ten round tables, six ‘conversations’ (conversatorios) and six workshops. It was an extensive, articulated, plural event. Joyful.
An essential point on the agenda of feminist philosophies today is the questioning of the philosophical canon: traditionally male, Western, white, European, ‘etc.’. The list is sometimes recited mechanically, with the implication that the words have almost lost their meaning. Yet the long list of adjectives at which many turn up their noses should disturb not because of its repetitiveness but because of the impact it has had and the philosophical operations it has legitimised. In line with this deconstruction and reconstruction process, a section of the congress was dedicated to Repensar el canon filosófico y la práctica de la filosofía (Rethinking the Philosophical Canon and the Practice of Philosophy). Our ‘metaphilosophical chronicle’ will focus precisely on this.
