The CCINDLE project has kicked off

The CCINDLE Horizon Europe project on Co-creating Inclusive Intersectional Democratic Spaces Across Europe has kicked-off the 1 October 2022!

CCINDLE (101061256) aims to contribute to strengthening and re-invigorating European democracies starting from the assumption that feminist theories and activism are essential sources of both resistance to anti-gender discourses and politics, and to revitalizing citizens’ engagement with democratic institutions and values. We build on the recognition that addressing the increasing challenges posed to European democracies require a combination of excellent academic research and well-informed practical solutions which: a) are feminist, anti-homophobic and anti-racist, b) could efficiently support high quality inclusive democratic governance, c) may create a push-back against authoritarian and anti-gender efforts.

By conducting research in seven European countries with different social and political backgrounds, and at the EU level, the project aims to:

• Deepen our understanding of the state of democracy in Europe, especially on core challenges it faces in different political and social contexts related to the principles of equality, inclusion and participation, and as a result of anti-gender/anti-LGBTQ campaigns.
• Identify and analyze different feminist responses that are a) present in theories, b) worked out within feminist movements, c) provided via feminist cooperation with formal institutions to anti-democratic trends and to the anti-gender forces.
• Identify specific tools and practical approaches, which in specific political and social contexts could lead to strengthening democracy, gender equality, and intersectional justice.
• Facilitate putting these tools and approaches into practice to support actors that embrace the twin goals of promoting equality and strengthening democracy, through co-creating actions with selected movement and institutional actors, with feminist and pro-democratic media, with universities as prominent actors in the politics of knowledge, and with philanthropic organizations promoting democracy and feminism.

Political contexts analyzed are: Belgium, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden, UK and the EU.

The UCM team, leadered by Emanuela Lombardo and composed of Alba Alonso, Maria Bustelo, Paloma Caravantes, and MariaCaterina La Barbera, will coordinate the WP on feminist institutional responses to anti-gender, anti-democratic forces, contribute to theory development on feminist politics and democracy, and conduct the Spanish field research on anti-gender campaigns and democratic innovations by feminist movements and institutions.