Moving Kinship: Practicing Feminist Justice in a More-than-Human World

In this webinar, Dr Beatrice Allegranti will introduce her new book: Moving Kinship: Practicing Feminist Justice in a More-than-Human World (Routledge, 2024). In this compelling text, choreographer and psychotherapist Beatrice Allegranti invites the reader into the transdisciplinary Moving Kinship project. Moving Kinship spans a decade of practice-led research with: people experiencing early onset dementia, Black feminist activists, psychotherapists, LGBTQ+ artists and activists, capoeiristas, and an international team of professional dancers and composers, musicians and scientists. 

The webinar will touch on aspects of the book that details how Allegranti's practice is a more-than-collaboration: it involves accounting for deeply embodied and embedded oppression and privilege in the micro-relating of everyday life. She discusses this reckoning as a 'kin-aesthetic' practice, and the message is foundationally feminist. The book opens possibilities for different registers of feminist justice and puts feminist new materialism, posthumanism and intersectional body politics to work in ways that affirm the paradox that every living thing moves everywhere, all the time, yet every movement is never neutral. As a white Italian-Irish feminist with a transgenerational legacy of the corrosive impact of fascism, she also weaves her own kinship story into dominating systems of patriarchy, colonialism and capitalism, intersecting in ways that are alive and well today. 

With an introduction, short reading, film excerpts and an experiential task from Beatrice Allegranti, followed by responses from professionals in the Arts Therapies and beyond, the webinar will address how Moving Kinship offers a rich resource for feminist activists and scholars, trauma-informed therapists, somatic, movement and dance practitioners, artists, arts therapists, and those interested in ethical and politically just ways to materially engage with grief, loss, dispossession and trauma.

• Intersectionality in Practice: Beatrice Allegranti's work showcases the intersectionality of oppression and privilege within various communities, including those affected by early onset dementia, LGBTQ+ activists, and professional dancers. By engaging with diverse collaborators, she highlights the complexities of navigating power dynamics in everyday interactions, offering valuable insights for understanding and addressing systemic inequalities.
• Kin-aesthetic Feminism: Allegranti emphasises a 'kin-aesthetic' approach to feminist justice, which underscores the importance of embodied and artistic experiences in understanding and addressing oppression and privilege. By centering the body, movement, and dance as entangled with wider social, political and environmental dymanics, Allegranti offers a unique perspective on feminist theory and practice that goes beyond theoretical discourse to engage with lived realities.
• Engagement with Loss, Trauma and Dispossession: Through her book and as an introduction in the webinar, Allegranti offers a framework for engaging with trauma and dispossession in ethically and politically just ways. By weaving personal narratives and broader systems of oppression into her work, she encourages practitioners across the arts and therapies (and beyond) to consider the implications of their actions and practices on marginalized communities. This emphasis on 'response-ability' underscores the importance of ethical engagement in fields such as activism, therapy, and the arts.