WOMACT: Women’s Movements as Agents of Crisis Transformation - Feminist Knowledge in Times of War and Democratic Backslidingcore
WOMACT · Horizon Europe grant · 2026-04-01–2028-03-31
EC contribution
Total cost
Beneficiaries
About the data
Source: CORDIS (official EU open data), Horizon Europe. Framework HORIZON · call HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF · scheme HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF · topic HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF-01-01. CORDIS record →
Objective
Women’s movements are often at the forefront of democratic and peace struggles, yet their knowledge practices in times of crisis remain underexplored. WOMACT – Women’s Movements as Agents of Crisis Transformation investigates how women’s movements in Israel/Palestine and Ukraine respond to overlapping ruptures of war, authoritarianism, and societal polarization. The project develops the concept of crisis epistemologies: situated, embodied, and strategic knowledges produced by feminist actors under duress, when existing frameworks collapse and new epistemic tools must be forged.Through a comparative feminist ethnography, WOMACT combines semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and digital content analysis with systematic cross-case coding. This design captures how movements recalibrate in political rupture, negotiate intersectional coalitions, develop embodied and digital repertoires of resistance, and sustain or re-imagine transnational solidarities. The project situates feminist activism as a laboratory of meaning-making, challenging dominant crisis and security narratives, and offering alternative visions of democracy, peace, and justice.Hosted by the University of Graz, with mentorship from Dr. Maximilian Lakitsch and an international advisory network, WOMACT provides advanced training in qualitative methods, digital security, and public engagement. It will deliver four high-impact publications, a policy brief series, and a co-designed activist toolkit, ensuring benefits for scholarship, civil society, and EU policy agendas. By foregrounding women’s movements as epistemic agents, WOMACT strengthens feminist peace and conflict studies and contributes to inclusive strategies for democratic resilience in Europe and beyond.
Beneficiaries (1)
| Organisation | Country | Role | EC contribution | SME |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UNIVERSITAET GRAZ | AT | coordinator | €230,185 |
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