Gender and Feminist Perspectives in Southeast Asia
Genre et perspectives féministes en Asie du Sud-Est
Thematic issue, Moussons No. 49
Moussons n° 49
Published on Wednesday, November 19, 2025
Abstract
This issue of Moussons invites a collective examination of gender relations, feminist mobilisations, and policies promoting the rights of women and gender minorities in Southeast Asia, by exploring their translations, tensions, and effects across different scales. This issue aims to contribute to a situated and decolonial reading of gender policies in Southeast Asia, with a particular focus on interactions between global dynamics and local configurations, between normative institutions and collective mobilisations, and between colonial legacies and contemporary transformations. It seeks to foreground the plurality of feminist and gender-minority voices and epistemologies in the region, by supporting the translation and circulation of work produced in Southeast Asian vernacular languages into French or English, in order to foster an inclusive intellectual dialogue.
Announcement
Argument
The 1995 Beijing World Conference on Women marked a watershed moment for feminist movements in Southeast Asia. The active participation of feminist associations from the region fostered the emergence of transnational networks and the dissemination of new categories of public action centred on gender mainstreaming. The impact of this event translated into a gradual institutionalisation of gender issues within both public policy and the associative sector: the creation of ministries or specialised units dedicated to the promotion of women, the incorporation of gender into development programmes, and the growing recognition of women’s organisations as legitimate interlocutors for states and international donors. While the subsequent decades have generated substantial scholarship, particularly on the diffusion and standardisation of gender policies, more contemporary transformations, marked by the reconfiguration of feminisms, the rise of new actors, and persistent tensions, remain comparatively underdocumented.
This issue of Moussons invites a collective examination of gender relations, feminist mobilisations, and policies promoting the rights of women and gender minorities in Southeast Asia, by exploring their translations, tensions, and effects across different scales.
The aim is to analyse gender configurations in the region through empirical research, theoretical interventions, and comparative reflections. Particular attention will be paid to forms of gendered division of labour and their transformations, whether in domestic, productive, or reproductive spheres, in migration processes, or within informal and transnational economies. What interpretive frameworks of gender prevail in specific historical and political contexts, and how do they contribute to the production—or contestation—of social norms? Whether inherited from local histories or introduced by religious, state, or international institutions, how do these norms come into contradiction depending on power configurations and historical periods?
Contributions may also focus on critical examinations of public policies and international mechanisms promoting the rights of women and gender minorities, as well as their concrete effects at the local level: processes of appropriation, resistance, diversion, or reconfiguration. How are international norms emerging from UN conferences, conventions, or development agendas negotiated and potentially contested in contexts marked by religious plurality, colonial legacies, nationalisms, and contemporary socio-economic transformations? Far from adopting a homogenising approach to the “globalisation of gender,” this issue seeks to highlight the contradictory dynamics that accompany the implementation of gender policies in Southeast Asia. It aims to explore the tensions between the universalisation of rights and local embeddedness, between the professionalisation of activism and the preservation of feminist critical spaces, between institutional dependency and strategic reappropriation.
Potential contributions may address, among other topics, the institutional production of gender-equality policies (national action plans, ministries, international agencies) and their implementation logics; the forms of translation and vernacularisation of gender within religious, customary, or community contexts; the dynamics of professionalisation, expertise, and NGO-isation within feminist and LGBTQ+ activism; and the forms of resistance, adaptation, or reinvention undertaken by local actors in response to international frameworks.
This issue aims to contribute to a situated and decolonial reading of gender policies in Southeast Asia, with a particular focus on interactions between global dynamics and local configurations, between normative institutions and collective mobilisations, and between colonial legacies and contemporary transformations. It seeks to foreground the plurality of feminist and gender-minority voices and epistemologies in the region, by supporting the translation and circulation of work produced in Southeast Asian vernacular languages into French or English, in order to foster an inclusive intellectual dialogue.
This thematic issue of Moussons welcomes contributions from across the humanities and social sciences (anthropology, sociology, history, political science, gender studies, etc.).
Submission guidelines
Proposals should take the form of a 750–1,000-word abstract and include a title, a summary of the contribution, and a short biographical note about the author.
Proposals should be sent by email to both of the following addresses: estelle.miramond@u-paris.fr and kotelesamia@gmail.com,
before 8 January 2026.
If the proposal is accepted (notification by 9 February 2026), full articles will be due by 15 June 2026. Articles should be between 35,000 and 75,000 characters (including spaces and footnotes). Contributions in English are welcome.
For more information, please consult the “Instructions for Authors” section on the Moussons website.
All submitted articles will be reviewed by the guest editors and one or more members of the editorial board before undergoing the journal’s standard process of double-blind external peer review.
The issue is scheduled for publication in June 2027. Estelle Miramond is lecturer in sociology (LCSP-IHSS) and co-director of the Center for Teaching, Documentation, and Research in Feminist Studies (CEDREF) at Paris Cité University. Her research focuses on issues of migration, sexuality, labor, and exploitation. After studying policies to combat trafficking in women between Laos and Thailand, she is now working on the bioeconomy of reproduction. Samia Kotele holds a PhD in History from the ENS de Lyon. Her research examines the intellectual and social history of Indonesian women ulama, drawing on conceptual history, collaborative ethnography, and transregional archival work. Her broader interests include Islamic reform, gendered authority, and decolonial feminist methodologies in Southeast Asia.
Scientific officers
- Estelle Miramond (LCSP – UPC)
- Samia Kotele (ENS Lyon – IAO)
Subjects
- Sociology (Main category)
- Society > Sociology > Sociology of work
- Society > Ethnology, anthropology > Social anthropology
- Society > Sociology > Gender studies
- Society > Ethnology, anthropology > Political anthropology
- Society > Political studies > Political and social movements
- Society > History > Women's history
- Society > Political studies > Governance and public policies
Date(s)
- Thursday, January 08, 2026
Keywords
- sciences sociales, rapports sociaux de sexe, politiques du genre, féminismes, Asie du Sud-Est
Contact(s)
- Estelle Miramond
courriel : estelle [dot] miramond [at] u-paris [dot] fr - Samia Kotele
courriel : kotelesamia [at] gmail [dot] com
Information source
- Mathilde Lefebvre
courriel : mathilde [dot] lefebvre [at] univ-amu [dot] fr
License
This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.
To cite this announcement
« Gender and Feminist Perspectives in Southeast Asia », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Wednesday, November 19, 2025, https://doi.org/10.58079/1566s
