Articulating Political Feelings

The Social Aesthetics in Feminist Antimilitarism and Queer Environmentalism

Abstract

This article introduces two local cases of political activism where performative methods were used: the 1987 demonstration by the feminist antimilitarists Women for Peace, and a campaign by Extinction Rebellion’s queer environmentalists in 2021, both in Helsinki, Finland. The article argues that through diversity and complexity, collectives become fluid and adaptive and thus stay ahead of party politics while advancing social change in an effective manner. This requires aesthetic strategies explored in this text: how ambivalent feelings are formed into an aesthetics to communicate political feelings and demands. The artistic methods used in these actions are considered through Jacques Rancière’s and Judith Butler’s theorising on the relational and the communal, while José Esteban Muñoz’s notions of queer temporality and the ephemeral apply to the acts as well. Through the framework of social aesthetics, as well as feminist and queer philosophy, I argue for the significance of aesthetics in collective agency building and social change.