Miriam Bak McKenna, Liv Navntoft Henningsen

Cojoining the Witch and the Cyborg in Feminist Theory: Revisiting Gender Related Violence Through Old and New Materialism

Introduction

Cojoining the witch and the cyborg in feminist theory: revisiting gender related violence through old and new materialism. Explore feminist materialist views of gender violence through 'witch' and 'cyborg' motifs. Analyze legal framing of GRV, subjectivity, and state intervention using old and new materialism.

Abstract

This article brings 'old' and 'new' feminist materialist insights into conversation, exploring their respective conceptualisations of gender through the motifs of the 'witch' and the 'cyborg'. The witch emphasises economic structures and capital's penetration into all spheres of life, foregrounding the material conditions of oppressed groups. The cyborg offers a more dispersed critique across entangled issues of economy, technology, and ecology, seeking transformative potential from within existing power relations through ambiguous affinities and everyday resistance. We apply these materialist lenses to examine law's framing of Gender Related Violence (GRV). Despite decades of legal measures addressing gender violence, fundamental questions remain unresolved: how to capture violence as both a specific, embodied experience and a phenomenon reproducing broader gender power; how to acknowledge violence's pervasiveness without conflating feminised subjects with passivity; and what forms of state intervention and redress are appropriate. These debates have intensified amid contemporary calls for a binding international convention on GRV. We explore how re-thinking GRV through old and new materialisms can contribute to feminist legal engagement with the definitional parameters of gendered violence, particularly regarding the normative framing of 'gendered violence', 'subjectivity and victimhood', and 'the role of state intervention’.

Review

The article "Cojoining the Witch and the Cyborg in Feminist Theory: Revisiting Gender Related Violence Through Old and New Materialism" proposes an ambitious and timely theoretical intervention. Its central premise is to bridge 'old' and 'new' feminist materialist perspectives by employing the compelling motifs of the 'witch' and the 'cyborg'. This analytical framework is then thoughtfully applied to the enduring complexities of Gender Related Violence (GRV) within legal discourse. The authors aim to re-examine how law frames GRV, promising a novel conceptual toolkit for feminist legal scholars grappling with the persistent challenges in this crucial field. The proposed conceptualisation holds significant promise for advancing feminist theoretical and legal engagement. The 'witch' motif, with its emphasis on economic structures and capital's pervasive influence, grounds the analysis in the material conditions of oppression, offering a robust lens for understanding GRV as deeply embedded in socio-economic realities. Complementing this, the 'cyborg' extends the critique to a more dispersed, entangled analysis of economy, technology, and ecology, highlighting possibilities for resistance and transformation within existing power dynamics through ambiguous affinities and everyday acts. This dual materialist approach is particularly well-suited to address the core dilemmas identified in GRV legal framing: how to simultaneously capture specific embodied experiences of violence alongside its broader reproductive function of gender power, how to acknowledge its pervasiveness without reducing feminised subjects to passivity, and the critical question of appropriate state intervention and redress. Its relevance is heightened by ongoing international debates concerning a binding convention on GRV. While the abstract clearly articulates the analytical framework and its potential applications, the success of this project will hinge on the detailed execution of the "cojoining" itself. Readers will be keen to see how the theoretical synthesis of the 'witch' and 'cyborg' actually *resolves* or *profoundly re-shapes* the long-standing legal questions posed, rather than simply identifying them. Specifically, the article will need to demonstrate with rigorous argumentation how this combined lens offers concrete advancements in defining 'gendered violence', re-conceptualising 'subjectivity and victimhood' beyond established paradigms, and offering nuanced insights into 'the role of state intervention'. The depth to which the article moves beyond outlining the *problems* to providing innovative *solutions* or *perspectives* informed by this sophisticated materialist synthesis will be critical for its impact within both feminist theory and legal scholarship.

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