Feminist Repurposing: Activism Against Violence, State Incorporation, and the Feminicídio Law in Brazil


Roberta Pamplona, University of Toronto

Feminists have brought attention to acts of violence that were previously not considered public concerns, such as domestic violence (Frazer and Hutchings 2020). In doing so, they have actively engaged with the state and its ideological disputes (Gramsci 1971; Hall 1996). In these disputes, studies have examined how feminist ideas on violence are implemented by noting an alignment with neoliberal agendas and conservative movements (Bumiller 2008; Bernstein 2012; Whittier 2018; Halley 2018). Studies on the Global South have revealed a double-edged sword for women’s movements as feminist politics through the state can encourage women to administer the law with their own hands (Roychowdhury 2020), strengthen mobilizations in the battles for democracy (Youssef 2023) and allow for new interpretations on the meanings of violence (Wright 2006; García-Del Moral 2016). Activists are particularly concerned about the outcomes of institutionalization for feminist projects (Ferree and Martin 1995), considering contemporary critiques on the depoliticization of feminism (Eschle and Maiguashca 2014) and the rise of anti-feminist discourses (Krizsán and Roggeband 2021). Given these contemporary apprehensions, Orloff, Ray, and Savci (2016) advocate for a more contextual approach to theorizing feminist politics and the state, considering how different contexts shape feminist activism and political dynamics. I answer their call by investigating feminist formulations around feminicídio after its institutionalization in Brazil across different feminist communities (Alvarez 1990; Carneiro, 2003). Through a case study of the Feminicídio Law in Brazil, I examine feminist formulations after the state incorporation of feminicídio, a category that broadly names the killing of women based on gendered reasons. I challenge the supposition that institutionalization necessarily leads to depoliticization. Examining feminist writings on feminicídio following its criminalization, I argue that feminist communities mobilized a legitimized framework to strategically confront state initiatives by employing an individual criminal classification as a tool against the state. I show how feminists directly contested the right-wing governments’ projects, such as the firearm ownership project and cuts on public health services, through the category of feminicídio. These tactical formulations were accompanied by justifications to expand welfare services, highlighting the overlap of criminalization dynamics and welfare projects. Relying on previous socio-legal studies on the repurpose of laws (Reynolds 2022; Garrick 2014), these data allow me to theorize feminist repurposing as an analytic approach that explains how feminists reformulate their ideas after the state incorporation for new political purposes. Feminist repurposing relies on feminist reformulations of legal categories by activists beyond their ordinary state incorporation. This analysis highlights how feminist activism against violence is dynamic and can mobilize institutionalized ideas against the state. My analysis of the feminicídio case in Brazil poses theoretical contributions to the impact of feminist institutionalization considering the rise of a global right in Latin America (Correa and Kalil 2021; Blofield, Ewig, and Piscopo 2017) and elsewhere (Krizsán and Roggeband 2021). The feminicídio case joins a feminist call for research on the role of feminist ideas on violence in expanding not only the carceral state but also welfare projects (Sweet 2023), depending on how feminists articulate them. My findings highlight that activists play a crucial role in the course of feminist ideas after institutionalization through the praxis of repurposing categories. Their formulations and mobilizations around institutionalized ideas reveal how specific legal reforms might have more political impacts than other projects and push for further social changes than just a penal policy.

This paper will be presented at the following session: