Building Movements without Movement: On Surviving the COVID-19 Mobility Regimes with the Black Womxn Caucus

Abstract

Building Movements without Movement: On Surviving the COVID-19 Mobility Regimes with the Black Womxn Caucus Tshegofatso Realeboga Phatshwane 2622007 Abstract The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 saw the escalation of gender-based violence and femicides (GBVF), especially in Botswana and South Africa. These challenges would thus compel feminist and African Womxn Human Rights (AWHR) movements like Feminism in Botswana (FiB) and the Black Womxn Caucus (BWC) to respond. However, like many of these movements, FiB would crumble under the pressures of imposed immobility. Meanwhile, the BWC would emerge on the other side of the pandemic, seemingly unscathed and thriving despite facing similar challenges. Thus, this study sought to answer the question: How did the Black Womxn Caucus survive the COVID-19 mobility regimes? To which the answer was revealed to be the centring of affect in their movement building and organising model and strategies. By valuing emotions, feelings and embodied experiences, the BWC was able to realise its mandate through the implementation of various projects at the height of the pandemic, re-affirm its values, principles and identities while evolving and growing with its incorporation of social media as one of their now most impactful and noticeable mobilising strategies. Through auto-ethnography, in-depth semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and textual analysis, this study explored the ways the BWC mobilised emotions, feelings, and embodied experiences to outmanoeuvre the pandemic and its mobility regimes. Through this 8-week journey, the author aimed to collate lessons from the experiences of a surviving movement to help defenders, activists, and movements affected by the pandemic, like FiB, in their rebuilding efforts. Keywords: COVID-19, Mobility Regimes, Affect, African Feminism, Movement Building