Research

Reshaping our methodological research tools for adequately capturing injustice and domination has been a central aspiration of feminist philosophy and social epistemology in recent years. Some feminist and political philosophers have taken an increasingly empirical turn, engaging with case studies and the challenges arising from conducting research in solidarity with unequal partners. I argue that these challenges cannot be resolved by merely adopting a norm and stance of deference to those in the struggle for justice. To conduct philosophical research in an engaged and solidaristic manner, I suggest that deference be supplemented by three methodological and normative principles: 1) epistemic humility, 2) accountability, and 3) co-producing knowledge.

I offer a descriptive and normative analysis of the requirements for effective transnational solidarity between southern NGOs and their northern partners. Drawing on interviews conducted with staff members of Senegalese women’s rights NGOs and a private international development foundation, I contend that existing theories of feminist transnational solidarity cannot allow us to properly acknowledge the power asymmetries and obstacles to solidarity that these NGOs are facing. 

Recognizing the impact of Susan Brison’s work on feminist and moral philosophy, I revisit the aftermath of sexual violence through the light of recent political concerns and research in social science. In line with Brison’s philosophical method—interweaving first-person narratives, social science research and feminist philosophy, this short paper tackles the aftermath of sexual violence in connection with a desire for justice, which may involve going through the criminal and legal system. I am especially interested in giving philosophical texture to the moral ambivalence or the double bind, characterizing the aftermath: performing victims’ suffering for the sake of being seen as a credible knower while being seen as a thriving survivor. I show how recent work on survivorhood and victimhood further pursues Brison’s insights by theorizing the aftermath of sexual violence.

Cet article porte sur le concept de préférence adaptative tel qu’il est apparu en philosophie féministe politique et anglophone depuis les années 2000. Ce concept désigne les préférences formées conformément à un milieu oppressif et qui vont à l’encontre du bien-être.

This article examines the concept of adaptive preference as it has appeared in feminist political philosophy since the 2000’s. This concept refers to preferences shaped in compliance with an oppressive environment and that jeopardizes one’s well-being. 

Mainstream philosophical approaches to inequality and poverty generally centre resources as a metric of justice in terms of either absolute or relative thresholds. On the one hand, the sufficiency approach claims that what morally matters is the state of deprivation—in which a person does not have enough resources. In this sense, those living in such deprivation can be identified by an absolute threshold. On the other hand, the egalitarian approach contends that inequality is a condition of deprivation that morally matters when a person has much fewer resources than others. This can be ascertained via a relative threshold. Two main perspectives arise from these two doctrines. The first is the view that poverty and inequality are primarily about resource-holdings leading to unmet needs. The second is the idea that absolute and relative thresholds of poverty do not overlap. Yet these perspectives are challenged by capability and relational approaches to poverty and inequality that go beyond resource-holdings and take one’s ability to do and be (her “beings” and “doings”). We argue that philosophers must integrate non-resourcist needs and multidimensional thresholds in their accounts of poverty. The present chapter engages with this shift by presenting classic metrics and thresholds of justice, and by examining what these accounts overlook when conceptualising poverty and inequality.

In this paper, I reinterpret philosophical debates surrounding feminist solidarity through the lens of the recent renewal of global political activism against gender-based violence. I argue that this surge of activism presents a valuable opportunity for feminist and political theorists to normatively reimagine feminist solidarity beyond second-wave and third-wave accounts appealing to problematic notions of gender identity and “individualized” accounts of groups. I contend that this global momentum should prompt theorists to conceptualize a responsive form of solidarity that emerges from the shared, political vulnerability to gender-based violence. I ground my reflections on this global momentum and the attendant conception of feminist solidarity that I identify in a qualitative research fieldwork conducted in Senegal in 2019, when an important national movement against gendered violence took place.

In this article, we tackle the ways in which collective capabilities might contribute to an analysis, and a political normative diagnostic, of the dynamics of residential segregation in the cities. Specifically, we intent to show that the framework of collective capabilities brings light to conceptualize what is a sufficient level of intergroups relations to allow freedom and develop an inclusive ideal of an egalitarian community. In so doing, this would contribute to point out the need of interrelated local structures of solidarity.

An abstract will be posted soon.

Because development practice has generally integrated a concern towards participatory practice in recent years, the current move towards online research should be closely scrutinized. Now more than ever, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, access to information and communication technologies for marginalized populations and women is a pressing global issue, and there is therefore a serious need for researchers to consider the ethical impact of the digitalization of development on their research. In this paper, I investigate whether the shift to digitalization in development research has had the effect of discouraging the participation of women and more marginalized community members. I suggest that this digitalization could contribute to epistemic and political obstacles in making projects truly participative, thus reinforcing existing epistemic injustices in development research. Integrating normative political theory with empirical research, I examine the ways in which researchers should respectfully navigate issues of informed consent, vulnerability, and confidentiality to encourage the participation of populations made vulnerable in responsible and responsive research design.

(2018) ‘Review of Sara de Jong’s book Complicit Sisters: Gender and Women’s Issues Across North-South Divides’, International Feminist Journal of Politics, 21(1), pp. 159-161.

(2017) ‘Review of Diana Meyers’ book Victims’ Stories and the Advancement of Human Rights’, Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review/Revue canadienne de philosophie, 56 (3) pp. 598-600.

(2015) ‘Review of Nancy Fraser’s book «Le féminisme en mouvements. Des années 1960 à l’ère néolibérale (translated by Estelle Ferrarese)’ (French), Genre, sexualité & société, Analysis and reviews, URL : http://gss.revues.org/3411.