60 DOI: 10.4324/9781003202332-8 6 FEMICIDE/FEMINICIDE AND COLONIALISM Paulina García-Del Moral, Dolores Figueroa Romero, Patricia Torres Sandoval, and Laura Hernández Pérez Introduction What is the relationship between femicide/feminicide and colonialism? And what are its implica- tions for feminist activism and scholarship? In this chapter, we argue for a transnational intersectional approach for answering these questions. Colonial processes are transnational (Glenn, 2015; Lugones, 2007; Patil, 2018), as are the various activisms that combat femicide/feminicide (B. Anderson et al., 2010; ECMIA, 2013; Fregoso and Bejarano, 2010; García-Del Moral, 2016; Hernández Castillo, 2016; Kuokkanen, 2012; Nagy, 2016). As these activisms gain momentum, it is important for schol- ars and activists to collaborate in producing knowledge on femicide/feminicide to decolonise it. A transnational approach “from below” centres the voices and experiences of racialised and Indigenous women in the Global South and North (Alexander and Mohanty, 2010; Stephen and Speed, 2021; Grewal and Kaplan, 1994; Sieder, 2021). It reveals the insidiousness of colonial violence in their lives, their interactions with the state and other national or supranational institutions, their relation- ship to feminisms, and their efforts to resist it (ECMIA, 2013; Figueroa Romero and De Marinis, 2020; Guimont et al., 2020; Hernández Castillo, 2016; Jiménez-Estrada et al., 2020; Kuokkanen, 2019; Sieder, 2017, 2021). We understand colonialism as a structure that has operated transnationally in various modalities through violent political, economic, cultural, and epistemic projects linked to the making of empires and nation-states (Glenn, 2015; Lugones, 2007; Quijano, 2007). The resulting gendered and racial hierarchies manifest differently in specific domestic or local contexts and yet are interconnected (Patil, 2018). These hierarchies rely on the imposition of Western forms of cognitive, symbolic, and social power as superior over other forms of life and knowledge, constructing colonised cultures and peoples as uncivilised and disposable (Cumes, 2014; Lugones, 2007; Nahuelpán, 2013; Quijano, 2007). This conceptualisation of colonialism unveils some of the articulations of different forms of racial and gendered oppression that must be dismantled as the basis for cross-border alliances and solidarities in the struggle against femicide/feminicide. We take the view that decolonisation is “a necessary goal to achieve gender and racial justice” (Glenn, 2015, 52) and thus reject an emphasis on gender as the sole determinant of violence against women. We adopt instead an intersectional perspective that views femicide/feminicide as the outcome of multiple, mutually constitutive and reinforcing violences that encompass interpersonal acts, as well as institutional and structural pro- cesses and systemic inequalities often rooted in colonial legacies (García-Del Moral, 2018; Figueroa Romero, 2019; Figueroa Romero and De Marinis, 2020; Menjívar and Walsh, 2017). Review Copy – Not for Redistribution File Use Subject to Terms & Conditions of PDF License Agreement (PLA)