Postsocialist Feminism. The Conceptual Tools of Our Own

Abstract The guiding question of the article refers to the epistemological and affective tools available to the feminists born and living in any part of what used to be Eastern Europe during the Cold War. To describe these tools, four main debates within Eastern European feminism are revisited: the East/West debate, the debate on postsocialism and postcolonialism, the debate on history, and the gender/class debate. The assumptions and the stakes of these debates are delineated within the larger frame of the Eastern European return to the West, as well as the subsequent return from it. The major claim is that the tools we have are built on erasures. Thus, the article functions as a bid for self-conscious postsocialist feminism, for the creation of the conceptual tools that help us understand better where we stand—and even more importantly, where we want to stand.