Title: Countering the rise of the radical right though community-led intersectional politics of care: Reflec-

tions on concepts and tactics to resist right-wing movements in Portugal and the United States

Abstract: Care and the practices of providing care have been proposed as solutions to multiple societal
crises in recent years, with scholarship on care flourishing and care-based economies and community-ac-
tions receiving attention. This is especially the case in the 21 st century as the climate crisis intensifies,
global displacement of people increases, and the COVID-19 pandemic has ongoing impacts. Feminist
studies have informed current thinking about care-based societal practices. Yet, there remains less focus
on how practices of care are understood and enacted, especially in relation to research on the responses to
radical right narratives and movements. However, Conceptually, too, critical feminist insights have also
shown illustrate that care can also be politically instrumentalised and perpetuate inequalities. One way to
counteract such challenges and to ensure practices of care can flourish is through community-led collec-
tive action that centres mutual aid and solidarity rather than charity. In this paper, we draw upon critical
feminist methods and on our own ongoing fieldwork experiences with community organizers in Portugal
and the United States to propose care-based tactics for preventing and countering the radical right. Our re-
search outlines some challenges while also offering possibilities of theorizing and enacting care-based
community-building that counteracts radical right reactionary imaginaries of the present and future with
an alternative set of imaginaries based on solidarity and mutual aid. (213 words)

evaluate key anarchist and critical feminist-informed theorizations and practices of such collective action,
reflecting on solidarity, mutual aid, and related practices that theorize intersectional collaborations to-
wards a shared objective of violence prevention.Keywords: politics of care, right-wing movements, criti-
cal feminist methodology, mutual aid, violence prevention

Authors and affiliations:

Dr. Raquel Beleza da Silva Dr. Priya Dixit

Assistant Professor Associate Professor of Political Science
University of Coimbra Department of Political Science
School of Economics Virginia Tech University
Av. Dias da Silva, 165 220 Stanger Street
3004-512 Coimbra Blacksburg, VA 24061
Portugal United States
Tel.|Phone: 239 790 500 - Ext. 500 294 Email: pdixit@vt.edu
E-mail: rbsilva@fe.uc.pt