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Public Emotions and the Affective Forces of Social Activism, Vol. 32 - 2025, No. 2
Affective Labour of Student Activism: A Study of Three Silence Breaks
This paper examines student activist initiatives combating gender-based violence within Czech higher education institutions. In particular, it explains how activists' affective labour is invested in the co-production of atmosphere surrounding gender-based violence within the affective arrangement of their university. Based on mixed-method research conducted amongst activists and their online and offline media and culture content, the findings of the multi-case study reveal how these initiatives break the silence around gender-based violence. As a result of their affective labour, the activists foster mutual aid based on care, solidarity and collaboration instead of the competition, individualism and harm within which the dominant masculine culture of science roots. The paper also considers the intersecting dynamics of this cognitive capitalism with the rise of anti-gender movements in Central and Eastern Europe, and the depoliticisation of higher education institutions. By addressing these structural forces, the paper contributes to ongoing debates on gender inequality in academia and, most importantly, resistance to systemic violence. Examining these resistances, it portrays the repoliticisation of the university in the context of gender-based violence as beneficial for academia's safety, sustainability, and resilience.
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