The logics of Sisterhood: Intra-feminist debates in Swedish feminist zines

Abstract

This article explores how during the period of 1997 to 2003 the signifier of Sisterhood came to serve as an empty signifier within and among a number of small Swedish feminist grassroots publications (i.e. zines). It begins by positioning the Swedish feminist zine community within the larger context of so-called 'second and third wave feminisms' but argues at the same time that it is important to break with traditional feminist chronologies, and resist reductive generational narratives of feminist movement history. On the basis of this particular empirical case the article introduces an analytic of sexual logics as an alternative for analysing feminist discourse. From here the article goes on to investigate how the notion of Sisterhood has come to serve as an empty signifier within this specific community. It concludes with a more general discussion of the function of empty signifiers in relation to recent feminist discussions of Sisterhood. © The Author(s) 2012.