GenCSEEx network

New Network: Gender and Sexuality in Eastern, Central and Southern Europe: Nordic cooperation (GenCSEEx)

Workshop “Resistance to anti-gender mobilisations in CSEE”, Södertörn University, May 25-26, 2026

The aim of GenCSEEx is to initiate a network of Nordic-based scholars, artists, and activists whose work relates to gender and sexuality in Central and Southeastern Europe (CSEE). The first workshop in a series of three, this event will gather 25 scholars, activists, and artists from across the Nordics.

The network will serve as an international research hub capable of responding to the dynamic changes in the field. The GenCSEEx network will be a source of expertise on gender relations, gendered and sexualised migration, gender and sexual politics, feminist and LGBTI+ activism, and anti-gender- and homophobic backlashes in the Nordic and Baltic regions and CSEE, connecting researchers with established resources with activists and grassroots entities across regions. The evident need for such a network is grounded in the extremely rapid anti-gender, social and political changes happening in the target regions. The network seeks to involve both academic and civil societies in an interchange based on feminist ethics.

Gender is often at the core of political debates and political realignments and has become a hot topic on political parties agendas in CSEE. Transnational anti-gender organising is a threat to democracy in CSEE and the Nordic countries alike. To counteract these travelling trends, there is a need of transnational collaborations, which is what the network aims to build. However, gender research is frequently a precarious undertaking, and many researchers, artists, and activists with roots in CSEE have migrated, often to Nordic countries, taking with them their expertise and work and continuing it in a Nordic academic and social context. There is therefore great potential in CSEE and Baltic research being developed in the Nordic context, and this is a crucial time to intervene.