LevFem, Transnational Social Strike, Essential Autonomous Struggles Transnational
The COVID-19 pandemic that began in 2020 showed that in order to sustain and reproduce our lives and society, some members of that society, especially women and migrants, Roma, or LGBTI people, are expected to willingly sacrifice themselves. Once again, they fell under the capitalist imperative to put their lives “on the front line” against the pandemic. So-called “essential” workers—nurses, teachers, care workers, cleaners, sales assistants, logistics workers – were “naturally” expected to fill the gap in social reproduction that stared us in the face from the remains of increasingly broken and vulnerable social systems.
It was precisely in this pandemic context, however, that these same women, LGBTI people, migrants, and workers in key sectors in Eastern Europe – along with many other people around the world in similar positions – resolutely opposed the tightening of capitalist, patriarchal, and racist regimes that exploit their productive and reproductive labour while abandoning them to the mercy of fate. It is their struggles, strikes, and protests for better working conditions, against racist manifestations, for the right to housing and social protection, against the rising patriarchal waves in Hungary, Poland, but also in many other places in Eastern Europe and beyond, that are reflected in the collection. The aim of the publication is to become a weapon for empowering feminist, labor, anti-racist, and migrant movements.
Information
Publisher: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Office Bulgaria
Editor-in-Chief: Stoyo Tetevenski
Editors: Stoyo Tetevenski, Mariya Ivancheva, Stoyanka Eneva, Nely Konstantinova, Kalina Drenska
Authors: Enikő Vincze, Zorka Mihailova, Cornelia Igas, Eva Michalkova, Sanem Ozturk, Sasha Hajzler, Ana Vilenica, Veda Popovici, Oksana Dutchak, Darina K., Magda Malinowska, Vanya Grigorova, Sopiko Japaridze
Translations: Galina Bezlova, Stoyo Tetevenski, Stoyanka Eneva, Nely Konstantinova, Mariya Ivancheva, Poly Stoyanova
Cover illustrations: Boryana Rossa
Graphic design and cover design: Boryana Krasimirova
Proofreaders: Anastasia Ilieva, LeftEast