A Tale of Solidarity? Exploring Sino-Nordic Gender Studies Network

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1344/jnmr.v10i.49356

Keywords:

Sino-Nordic Gender Studies Network, Solidarity, Transnational Feminism

Abstract

This article provides an account of the Sino-Nordic Gender Studies Network, which was founded in 2002, and had since then played a significant role in shaping feminist research and activist exchange between China and Nordic countries. However, the history and practices of this network has received scant attention in studies on transnational feminist solidarities. The aim of the article is twofold. First, we analyze the network using historical and autoethnographic approaches and map out a genealogy of feminist knowledge production that is located at the intersection of China and Nordic contexts. Second, we read the network through the lens of solidarity, all the while critically engaging with its defining parameters. As we will show, although solidarity has been increasingly associated with transnational feminism’s political and ethical orientations, the case of Sino-Nordic Gender Studies Network compels rethinking how and why the term is used and criticized. The complex relation between interpersonal relationships and the power imbalance between the various institutions and funding schemes calls into question the strict division between collective and individual that informs much discussion of feminist solidarity. Rather than simply being a good practice of feminist solidarity, this article argues that the Sino-Nordic Gender Studies Network offers important insights into the doing of solidarity even in its seeming absence.

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Author Biographies

Xin Liu, Turku Institute for Advanced Studies, Finland; Karlstad University, Sweden

Liu Xin is a Collegium Fellow at the Turku Institute for Advanced Studies and a Senior Lecturer in Gender Studies at Karlstad University. She is the co-author (with Adi Kuntsman) of the forthcoming monograph, Digital Technologies, Smart Cities and The Environment: In the Ruins of Broken Promises, published by Bristol University Press.  She has co-edited books and peer-reviewed special issues on a range of topics, including digital politics, technology and the environment, sexualities and critiques of capital. She serves as the co-editor of the Digital Materialities and Sustainable Futures book series, published by Emerald Press, alongside Adi Kuntsman and Erinma Ochu.

Dušica Ristivojević, University of Helsinki, Finland

Dušica Ristivojević is a senior researcher affiliated with the University of Helsinki since 2016. Her research focuses on a longue durée China’s global interactions and international politics, media, and social organizing in and out of China. She is finalizing her book manuscript on transnational connections of Chinese socio-political movements and follows China’s presence in Europe’s Eastern peripheries, especially its investments in dirty industries and digital technologies.

 

Yan Zhao, Faculty of Social Science, Nord University, Norway

Yan Zhao is professor of sociology at Nord University, Norway. Zhao’s research area includes migration, health and welfare, aging and care, transnational adoption, sociology of family. She has also theoretical interests in feminist theories, transnationalism, and postcolonial theories. Her recent publications include one book chapter and one article on migration of Chinese older parents in relation to the family-based welfare regime in China, two articles and one book chapter on transnational/transcontextual learning in international social work education, and one book chapter on “health party” as a method to improve health literacy of migrant women in Norway.

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Published

2025-02-05

Issue

Vol. 10 (2025): Tenth issue

Section

Matters of Solidarity

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Copyright (c) 2025 Liu Xin, Dušica Ristivojević, Yan Zhao

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