The Long March Through the Patriarchal Institutions : A Dialogue Between Rosi Braidotti & Nina Lykke

Doing feminist work from within patriarchal institutions comes with unique challenges. We invited two activists and feminist studies professors, Rosi Braidotti and Nina Lykke, to reflect on feminists’ long march through patriarchal university institutions. Concretely, we asked them to reflect upon three themes. Firstly, we asked them to situate themselves and their work – and reflect upon what it takes to do feminist work which troubles mainstream epistemologies. Secondly, we asked them to explore how the conditions for feminist research have changed over time – and what the current neoliberal and right-wing backlash does to feminist research. And finally, we asked how coming of age might have influenced them, and how they looked upon intergenerational exchanges in the feminist movement. The aim of the dialogue was to look back at how the feminist studies movement in academia emerged, while at the same time looking forward to explore which new political and ideological conditions have arisen and how these might affect future possibilities for conducting feminist research within academia.