‘Against the state that kills women’: using photo elicitation to explore grassroots feminist discourses on gendered violence in Albania and Kosovo

Abstract

Feminists disagree about how best to understand and respond to gendered violence. Disagreements can be due, among other things, to the diversity of feminist perspectives and modes of organisation, different socioeconomic and political contexts, and different conceptions of the state and community. In this article, we explore grassroots feminist discourses on gendered violence in Albania and Kosovo. The two countries have been heavily impacted by gendered violence, but they are also home to a significant grassroots feminist mobilisation. Starting from images and imagination that have characterised this mobilisation, by using the photo-elicitation method, we interview feminist activists and academics about the ways in which they understand and interpret gendered violence, and the strategies and interventions they deem most relevant in addressing it. We offer a contextualised critique of feminist discourses and responses to gendered violence, while highlighting the contradictions and tensions that exist in such discourses and practices.