Gender Democracy - Articles

Anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric has been a central element of the Georgian Dream’s anti-democratic turn towards the far right. How do anti-LGBTQ+ statements and policies help GD expand its grip on power, and why does this strategy work? 

In this article, the author examines the role of masculine governmentality in sustaining President Aliyev's authoritarian traditionalism through a poststructuralist feminist lens.

Trans men in Azerbaijan face severe challenges when trying to express their gender identity. In an environment where society, especially their families, finds it difficult to accept them, leading their daily lives becomes a significant problem. They struggle to survive independently while confronting both legal and social obstacles.

While the impact of war and militarism is often studied in relation to women, this article looks at the relationship of toxic masculinity, militarism, homonationalism, and queerness in Azerbaijan in the context of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War.

The article describes the anti-liberal and anti-democratic discourses prevalent in Eastern and Central European countries like Georgia, Hungary and Poland. The author connects instances of global anti-gender mobilization amid the latest crisis of democracy and the rise of right-wing populist authoritarianisms.  

The article is based on Ketevan Lapachi’s doctoral research, which explores and analyses practices related to hair loss. To conceptualise these practices, the author provides an overview of literature focusing on the relationship between the body and the discourse, while also discussing new ways of seeing and understanding the human body.

The project seeks to establish the groundwork for a documentary that will make a significant contribution to the discourse surrounding women's sexuality in both historic Soviet and contemporary Georgia.

The feminist movement and the LGBTQ+ community represent marginalized populations in Azerbaijan - they experience social, political, and economic discrimination and exclusion. 

Proposing a feminist foreign policy would raise eyebrows in Armenia, a country that has been involved in armed conflict and has conventional threats to its security and sovereignty in a complicated geopolitical environment.

This article critically discusses feminist foreign policy and applies a comprehensive understanding of it to Azerbaijan’s foreign policy and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.   

This article argues that the notion of gender equality is crucial to creating peace and triggering a transformation in political stalemates (and violent conflict). 

This paper focuses on the possibilities of transforming the gender distribution of labor and power dynamics within families under the conditions of seasonal labor migration of men in Armenia.

Ramil writes about the urgency of intersectionality by studying the narratives of Azerbaijani LGBTQI+/queer individuals who have been facing multi-layered discrimination in Azerbaijan. 

Ali Malikov is an queer activist and journalist. They are also one of the founders of the feminist-queer platform "Qıy vaar!" and 'Femkulis'. Ali shares stories of queer teachers in urban and rural Azerbaijan and clearly shows the challenges they face on a daily basis, both in their professional and personal lives

We are glad to announce a call for contributions to a book project that seeks to reflect on masculinities in the South Caucasus through various angles, including personal, artistic, and scientific.

This analysis aims to reveal the socio-linguistic features that are conditioned by war. The text does not claim to be in-depth research, but rather aims to show what the connection is between war, language, gender identity, and what additional layers there are for studying this topic further.

Vusala Hajiyeva, a transgender woman from Baku, Azerbaijan, tells about the isolation, which did not start during the covid-19 pandemic. She shares her personal story describing the multifaceted difficulties that transgender people face in her country, both on an individual and systemic level. Vusala tells stories of failure, hatred, love, and hope.

Informality is a form of solidarity economy and post-pandemic survival mode for the most economically active population of Azerbaijan. Women, consisting 62% of the informal workers, should be situated in the center of conversations on reproduction, labor rights, social protection and welfare support during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This article points out how the various consolidated apparatuses render feminism and feminists the most visible other by utilizing different othering techniques such as criminalization and securitization. What is more, it depicts how feminism and women's issues started to get politicized, shifting from the "social/safe" to the "political/dangerous" space on a discursive level.  

"There is a house in Baku where cis and trans women live together and support each other. They also don't allow any transphobic people or anyone who could potentially be a threat to move in," said a friend to me in a conversation that one usually has when you haven't seen each other in months and want to share the world over a cup of tea.