New special issue - Women, Gender & Research: Decolonialisation, no. 1 2025
The new special issue of Women, Gender & Research examines decolonisation as an enduring structure shaping gender, knowledge, and legitimacy in the Nordic region and beyond
The new special issue in Women, Gender & Research engages the theme of Decolonisation, bringing together decolonial and Indigenous scholarship in conversation with gender studies. As the special issue editors write, it "comes at a moment in time that calls for critical and rigorous analysis of how structures of coloniality and hetero-patriarchy continue to shape the present, during a time when colonisation takes on renewed and continuing forms and appearances" (Graugaard et. al., 2025). Situating the issue in the current political moment, the introduction reflects on coloniality and colonialism in the Nordic region and beyond, as not just a historical past, but an enduring structure that continues to organise whose bodies, lives, territories, and knowledges are rendered legitimate.
The issue brings together no less than 25 contributions that shed light on this topic from various perspectives and vantage points, 15 peer-reviewed articles, 7 essays, debate- and artistic pieces, and 3 book reviews. The issue features authors – scholars and artists – who occupy diverse positions, experiences, and knowledges on topics related to decolonisation and gender studies in the so-called Nordic region and beyond. Importantly, the issue also foregrounds contributions rooted in lived, Indigenous, and other minoritised experiences of colonisation, recognising these as essential forms of expertise that challenge dominant academic hierarchies. The special issue also highlights artistic, collaborative, and practice-based forms of knowledge as central to decolonial feminist thinking. By bringing diverse epistemic traditions into conversation, the issue and the contributions together ask how coloniality shapes gender and sexuality today—and what alternative modes of relation and knowledge-making can unsettle it.
As the special issue editors underline, the special issue is not a conclusion but an encouragement for more work on decolonial feminist futures within Nordic scholarship.
Read the full special issue of Women, Gender & Research on Decolonisation here: https://tidsskrift.dk/KKF/issue/current