Summary: Mutually Assured Survival: Feminist Solidarities Amidst Planetary Threats

Podcast: LSE: Public lectures and events
Date: October 22, 2025
Chair: Dr. Sharmila Parmanand
Panelists: Dr. Lynn Osome, Professor Shirin Rai, Dr. Gloria Novovich

Main Theme and Purpose

This episode brings together leading global feminist scholars to discuss “Mutually Assured Survival: Feminist Solidarities Amidst Planetary Threats.” Held during escalating environmental, public health, and geopolitical crises, the conversation explores how feminist theory and activism can address the interlocking crises of social reproduction, care, planetary threats, and growing political authoritarianism. The panel also reflects on the limitations of current frameworks and the challenges of sustaining meaningful feminist solidarity and action without falling into traps of exclusion, co-optation, or hopelessness.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Stage for Feminist Solidarity (00:16–04:05)

• Framing the Event: Dr. Gloria Novovich introduces the context: the urgent need for honest, self-critical, and action-oriented feminist discussion in the face of planetary devastation.
• Reclaiming Meaning: The importance of giving substance to concepts like justice, peace, and solidarity, as global crises threaten to empty them of significance.
  Quote: “Ours is an invitation to defy devastation, to talk about world making feminist agendas...” (C, 06:49)

2. Social Reproduction: Crisis and Structure

Dr. Lynn Osome's Perspective (10:39–15:05)

• Structural Relationships: Social reproduction is more than care or labor; it is a structural set of relations that makes care visible in political and economic terms.
• The Role of the State & Neoliberalism: In the Global South, especially, weakened state capacity exacerbates the crisis of social reproduction, with commoditized care deepening gender, racial, and class inequalities.
• Quote: “Social reproduction offers us a very central lens of understanding … Why are there more populations that are drawn to their ethnic, racial, or gender communities?...” (D, 13:50)

Prof. Shirin Rai's Perspective (15:05–20:29)

• Three Dimensions of Social Reproduction:
  1. Reproduction of labor under capitalism (Marxist-feminist lens).
  2. Maintenance and care as central to life.
  3. Ideological reproduction—legitimizing the separation of public/private and the feminization of care.
• Depletion & Valorization: Care is often valorized but not valued—recognition doesn't translate into support. The pandemic made care’s importance visible but didn't bring material change.
  Quote: “Standing outside clapping for carers … that is valorization. But we are not producing anything really. [Motherhood] is outside of the production boundary.” (A, 18:02)

3. Anti-Capitalist and Anti-Imperialist Feminist Agendas (21:42–38:42)

Dr. Lynn Osome (21:42–31:10)

• Historical Context: Feminist agendas must be both anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist, especially in the Global South, where underdevelopment is rooted in colonial histories and continues in contemporary crises.
• Land, Environment, State: Demands for land, sovereignty, and environmental justice are deeply linked. The state’s role, once diminished under neoliberalism, is now central again as people demand social infrastructure.
• Solidarity as Necessary: “There’s no way that we can evade these questions. And I don’t think feminist critique and analysis can evade these questions.” (D, 30:25)

Professor Shirin Rai (31:10–38:42)

• Fragility & Backlash: Recent years (including personal anecdotes and observations) reveal the fragility of progress and resurgence of anti-socialist, racist, and misogynistic backlash.
• Migration & Social Reproduction: Illustrative stories (e.g. Indian internal migration during COVID, care labor migration) highlight how crises are everyday, not one-off events.
• Crisis as Everyday: “Crisis is not an event. Crisis is part of our everyday ... So you cannot disassociate crises of the everyday from crises of capitalism.” (A, 36:31)
• Political Focus: Emphasis on collective, not individualized, resistance; accountability of the state; and skepticism about whether increased state sovereignty alone is a solution.

4. Feminist Possibilities Amidst Multiplicity and Complexity (40:20–52:26)

Dr. Lynn Osome (40:20–49:03)

• Planetary Consciousness & Care Beyond Humans: True planetary action requires deep consciousness and connection—to the nonhuman world and to how care is organized and felt. Quote: “We can’t save a planet of which we are not actively conscious.” (D, 40:34)
• Difference & Margins: Build solidarity from the margins, intentionally recognizing difference while critically addressing its structural reproduction under capitalism and colonialism.
• Political Opening: Crisis creates political windows for change, especially at the intersections of class, gender, and race.

Prof. Shirin Rai (49:03–52:26)

• Rejecting Siloed Solutions: Feminist political economy insists on connecting issues (land, labor, environment, health) rather than treating them separately.
• Scale Matters: Ties between micro (e.g. local water provision), meso (state policies), and macro (international systems) contexts are critical. Quote: “You have a cocktail of devastation that you cannot resolve by just taking one out of those and focusing on that.” (A, 49:40)

5. Audience Q&A Highlights

Digital Technologies & Care (53:55–61:10)

Q (Lydia): Role of digital gig platforms in care work, their gendered and racialized impacts, and environmental impacts of tech/AI.

• Prof. Rai: Tech is profitable but redistributive impact is unclear; technology automates and fragments care but rarely improves conditions for carers or those cared for. “Nobody talks to people about how they feel about the care they are getting.” (A, 58:52)
• On Consulting Communities: Communities like nuns, or others organized around care, have vital experience and should be consulted in designing alternatives.
• On Gen Z (Emma): This generation confronts crises with fewer resources and less certainty; intergenerational justice is crucial.
• Dr. Osome: Gen Z confronts crises with new realities, e.g., redefined family, little hope for pensions or property; solidarity must transcend nihilism, and care should remain a space for critique, not complacency.

Abolitionism, Ethics of Care, and Policy (64:51–80:12)

Q (Okata): Can abolitionism play a role in “mutually assured survival,” given activism’s risks and depletion?

• Prof. Rai: Recognizes activist burnout and calls for “reflexive solidarity”—sustainable, self-critical support systems. “Making change happen is darn hard, and you have to do it every day.”
• Dr. Osome: Liberation must be collective, not individualized; abolition remains a core horizon in rethinking care.

Q (Yuan): Can feminist ethics of care offer alternative planetary politics and avoid replicating hierarchies?

• Panelists: Solutions must avoid liberal co-optation and be attentive to global, racialized, and classed hierarchies—change requires complex solidarities, combining policy action with ongoing critique.

Q (Daniela): When policy advances (e.g. paternity leave) aren’t matched by social uptake, and data-driven “evidence” isn’t persuasive, how should feminists proceed?

• Prof. Rai: Evidence alone is inadequate; deep, historically and locally informed, pluralistic solidarities are needed.

Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• “Ours is an invitation to defy devastation, to talk about world making feminist agendas while avoiding the past traps of identitarian exclusions, of liberal co-optations, of fear based betrayal...” (C, 06:49)
• “Crisis is not an event. Crisis is part of our everyday... So you cannot disassociate crises of the everyday from crises of capitalism.” — Prof. Shirin Rai (A, 36:31)
• “You cannot think of land in a context where people do not have jobs, where the healthcare system is completely gutted ... The demand for land is always a demand for something much more.” — Dr. Lynn Osome (D, 27:10)
• “We can’t save a planet of which we are not actively conscious.” — Dr. Lynn Osome (D, 40:34)
• “Liberation cannot be articulated on an individual basis... Liberation is always connective.” — Dr. Lynn Osome (D, 74:37)
• “Making change happen is darn hard and you have to do it every day... If you stop, then you have these backslidings very quickly.” — Prof. Shirin Rai (A, 71:05)

Memorable Moments

• Prof. Rai’s story about seeing anti-socialist graffiti in London (31:13)—a tangible sign of backlash and shifting political rhetoric.
• Dr. Osome’s reflection on personal care experiences with animals, drawing parallels to planetary consciousness and care beyond humans (40:34).
• Multiple references to Gaza and Sudan—blending abstract theorizing with tangible, urgent struggles for survival and resistance.

Concluding Insights

The panel concluded by reaffirming the necessity of complex, pluralistic, and self-critical feminist solidarities to confront planetary threats. Approaches must be collective, context-specific, and historically grounded, attentive to persistent inequalities and the risks of both burnout and ideological co-optation. While there are no easy answers—“there’s no way we can evade these questions”—the event offered a template for honest engagement, rigorous analysis, and hope that persists through solidarity.