Fem*Fém 73: Feminist perspectives on poverty

In cooperation with MICHÈLE AMACKER & MARGOT VOGEL CAMPANELLO

The dwindling resources available to large sections of society and the denial of access to social participation, education and prosperity are contributing factors to the current youth protests in Europe and around the world. Against a backdrop of growing inequality, it is worth re-examining economic hierarchies and poverty from a feminist perspective and highlighting the structural dynamics that underlie individual life stories. Gender relations and intersectional inequalities shape the economic security and social participation of individuals and households also in Switzerland. This is particularly evident among single parents, people in precarious employment or residency situations, and those transitioning into retirement. The Swiss Poverty Monitoring (report from 2025) provides an important statistical basis for the analysis of poverty.

Nevertheless, there are numerous gaps in research that cannot be filled by statistical data alone: How do part-time work, unpaid care work, family structures and the framework of the welfare state interact over the course of a person’s life? What impact do motherhood, separation and divorce have on financial independence? How do social policy regulations and cantonal differences influence the emergence and overcoming of poverty? How can poverty be examined beyond binary gender categories? What experiences do trans and non-binary persons have of material insecurity and discrimination? How do gender, social background, migration, residence status, disability and age intersect in different dynamics of poverty? How is poverty passed down across generations? Poverty is also a social experience shaped by societal attributions and institutional practices. How do FINTA persons affected by poverty experience stigmatisation and exclusion? What coping strategies do they develop, and what knowledge emerges from their experiences?

This call for papers invites theoretical, empirical and methodological contributions that examine gender-structured patterns of poverty in Switzerland, critically question established categories and open up new perspectives on the origins, reproduction and overcoming of poverty.

• Abstracts (ca. 1,500 characters) by February 1, 2027
• Articles (ca. 8,000 characters) by June 1, 2027
• Contact: Nina Seiler (she) redaktion femwiss ch